


persephone

by batman



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Arranged Marriage, M/M, parkour!, strangers to husbands to enemies to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-17 04:26:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 65,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28593960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/batman/pseuds/batman
Summary: “Hers is a story characterised by absence. Her absence from the earth above, then her absence from the underworld. In essence, it is a story defined by longing. The union is only a part of it: the heart, then, is the separation.”
Relationships: Kageyama Tobio/Tsukishima Kei
Comments: 183
Kudos: 305
Collections: Anu2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> happy gorgeous birthday to me, for which i have decided to gift myself and you: a story!
> 
>  **notes on arranged marriage:** this is a trope-filled romance, not an endorsement of arranged marriage as it is practiced in most societies, including mine. if someone tried to marry me off to some guy i didn't care about, i would abdicate. 
> 
> **notes on dynamics:** there is nothing - specific or severe - that i need to warn for (with one exception, and the chapter will carry a warning) but the dynamics here are not rose-washed or perfect, and they are imperfect in a decidedly less wholesome way than the ones i usually portray. families are far from stellar, interactions aren't smooth, and everyone could use a lot of goodwill in general. as usual - they are all safe and happy in the end, but they take their time getting there. 
> 
> **general warnings:** lots of sex and the claustrophobia of an arranged marriage, intersecting once in a while. as such nothing is skippable because it's all an essential part of their relationship, which, as i mentioned above, is not bathed in holy water. if the themes bother you, i would rather you kept yourself safe and serene.
> 
>  **warning:** malevolent candle-wielder akaashi keiji.

_Afar away the light that brings cold cheer  
_ _Unto this wall, – one instant and no more  
_ _Admitted at my distant palace-door  
_ _Afar the flowers of Enna from this drear  
_ _Dire fruit, which, tasted once, must thrall me here.  
_ _Afar those skies from this Tartarean grey  
_ _That chills me: and afar how far away,  
_ _The nights that shall become the days that were.  
_ _Afar from mine own self I seem, and wing  
_ _Strange ways in thought, and listen for a sign:  
_ _And still some heart unto some soul doth pine,  
_ _(Whose sounds mine inner sense in fain to bring,_  
_Continually together murmuring) —  
_ _'Woe me for thee, unhappy Proserpine'._

_— Dante Gabriel Rossetti_

♕

Tobio breathes out against the glass. Dampness touches him back. The pane is cold against his forehead, the tip of his nose, now his temple and cheekbone as he turns his head.

Outside, the rain hasn’t stopped for a minute. It was here when the sun came up, and now as he waits for it to set, it’s still here. Impossible to step off the stone paths in the gardens now without drowning in mud. The grass and shrubs and trees all look like the same wash of colour, separating from themselves only when drops cut clarity across the fog on the window.

July’s too early for the rain to be acting like this. Tobio still isn’t surprised.

Downstairs, someone’s been at the piano for half an hour. Miwa, probably, to take her mind off the mix of stress and joy it’s been carrying around all day, so that she can put her best face on by the time it’s needed. Tobio can see her; stained skirt, wrinkled shirt, though her hair must be done already. Ignoring all the activity around herself to focus, play something from a film only she and their father can remember. She still has two hours to get into a gown and paint her lips.

Tobio still has two hours. He doesn’t know what to do with them, so he looks at his cufflinks— still in place— turns to look at himself in the mirror that takes up half the opposite wall— still in place. A suit black enough to blend into the incoming night, its only points of light the cufflinks by his wrists. Tobio, pale in the rain-grey afternoon, hair out of place where it was pressed against the glass. He tries to adjust it with two fingers, then gives up. Behind him the window, stretching all the way to the ceiling, the pane dividing the gardens into long rectangles of misted jade and emerald. Still in place.

He doesn’t know what to do with the two hours he still has. Outside, it doesn’t look like the rain will be stopping for them.

♕

It doesn’t. When they finally come in, Tobio hides behind his door, creaked open a palm’s width, and the first thing he hears is Tsukishima Akiteru’s sweet, high voice, exclaiming, as Tobio’s mother laughs. Their voices float all the way upstairs, creeping across the carpet in the dim hallway like they’re coming to catch him by the ear.

‘Oh, no,’ he’s saying. ‘I’m so sorry about the rug— I’ll tell the little ones to watch out—’

‘It’s all right,’ Tobio’s mother replies. _‘I’m_ so sorry, it’s so terribly unseasonal— the forecast said nothing last week, we were expecting to be able to hold it in the— a lovely canopy, open space for the children— oh, here’s Kei-kun. Oh, don’t you look stunning! Here, let him get that— oh, my goodness. I’m going to cry.’

Tobio sucks in a breath— and then a hand reaches into his vertical line of vision, and before he can blink he’s being flicked on the forehead. ‘Ow, fuck!’

‘Are you twelve?’ Miwa hisses back, forcing the door open. Her gown is sleek and long, trailing behind her. The only colour in the black stretch of it is from the single sapphire hanging from the silver cord around her neck. She looks so, so beautiful, and he can’t even be angry at her for it. ‘Why are you eavesdropping? Hinata’s been looking for you all over the place. Fix your hair, it’s time to go.’

‘My hair is fine,’ Tobio says. Downstairs, his father’s booming laugh. He must’ve finished herding everyone across the estate— yes, that’s Tsukishima-san and her husband, both talking about how beautiful everything looks, _oh, is that little Hana-chan, how well she’s grown, oh, what a little princess._ ‘Fix _your_ hair.’

She rolls her eyes, then steps all the way into the room, pushing him along to the mirror. With her hair up she’s almost as tall as him, looking taller still with her slimmer shoulders, finer lines. Tobio stares blankly at the figure the two of them cut in that stupidly huge mirror, the window gone black with rain and night now, the open door throwing a polygon of dull yellow light onto the dark carpet, and the biggest lamp in the room shaping the rest of the shadows on their faces.

Behind, a tired, almost-invisible flash of lightning. Tobio counts the seconds. One, three, five, seven. The thunder is far, somewhere over the hills where it might find a place to land. Miwa still shudders at the rumble of it, then breathes in deep and steps in front of Tobio, looks everywhere but into his eyes as she smooths her hands down the sleeves of his coat, fixing his cufflinks, moving back up to brush his shoulders. Fixing his hair, stubbornly.

‘Our handsome Tobio,’ she sing-songs, but it catches in her throat and she has to swallow. Maybe Tobio could be angrier at her if he didn’t know the real reason behind that split-second break in her voice. ‘Come on. They’re waiting.’

♕

The carpet under Tobio’s feet is one endless stretch, from the corners of the room, out to the narrow hallway that, on either end, gives way downwards to twin flights of stairs. It folds over those stairs too, so their footfalls are silent.

Tobio’s footfalls are silent. Tsukishima Kei still turns to look at him, as if he knows. The first to do it out of them all; and only when he turns do they all turn, does the noise start up.

But Tobio isn’t listening to the noise. There has been so much rain all day; he can’t hear each drop, only drowns it all out so that he can hold his breath for the slightest hint of something that isn’t rain. Thunder— isn’t rain. Silence— isn’t rain.

Tsukishima— isn’t rain. He’s all wide golden eyes and open lips, his skin so fair against the storm-grey of his clothes, the silver tie around his throat almost an opening to his sternum. Light hair perfect despite the weather, and his shoulders thrown back, his— whole self at its tallest, though he’s sitting. Though the way his fists curl on his knees make Tobio think that maybe his legs wanted him to stand up.

The others do stand up, and Tsukishima follows, a beat late. The tallest, now, a prince among princes. Tobio tightens his grip on the polished wood of the rail, and wills his feet not to stumble. Miwa is already four steps down, and he can see her turn to smile up at him, but it’s as foggy as the gardens earlier. Tobio looks down the curving flight of stairs and only one person is at the bottom of it. Tobio looks behind at his open door and the room is gone. Tobio looks at Tsukishima, and he isn’t rain.

♕

It isn’t a ceremony for the media. There won’t be any, and thank God. No, there’s only fifty people— _still too many,_ Kunimi had frowned, _nowhere near enough,_ Hinata had grumbled— and half of those are family. Tobio almost smiles at the way Hinata manages to take all six children under his command and march them down the hall, probably to the library so that he can tell them horror stories or whatever stupid plan he has up his sleeve to keep them distracted for long enough. Then he almost smiles at Shimizu and Kunimi, both with their headsets on, dressed up in black and silver, backs pressed to the wall. Then he almost smiles at Akiteru nii-san, who won’t be crying either, because his younger brother is not as forgiving as Tobio.

But Tobio only almost smiles; he isn’t feeling all that forgiving anymore, either. Not when the other half of those fifty people keeps coming forward to shake his hand and pat his shoulder, congratulating him before the rings are even out, and trying to reserve a five-minute appointment with his father, or Miwa, in the same breath. Not when all of them have the same smile on their faces when they turn to Tsukishima. Not when both his mother, and Tsukishima-san, sigh and laugh all over again when the rings are finally brought out, as if they’d forgotten what they look like.

Still, there’s a moment, when he sees the rings himself, where his heart lurches. The thick, solid one that’s his; the thinner one meant for Tsukishima, like lace. The green of both stones, dark like eyes. Clean like water.

Two months ago, when the engagement was finalised, was when their mothers had their measurements taken. Tobio still remembers that afternoon; the mid-May sun coming in through the second-floor window and right into Tsukishima-san’s eyes, lighting them up the same strange colour that both her sons inherited from her. Tsukishima himself, that day, had sat with his back to the window. The pillar of him lit up in the first flames of summer, and only the backglow of them showing the stone-set of his face as he held his hand out for the assistant to take.

Tobio remembers. Tsukishima had looked off to the side, at the floor, jaw clenched, eyes dull, hiding from the sun. His hand limp as the assistant tried ring after ring on it, then tense as one finally stayed, as Tobio’s mother laughed _finally, my, Kei-kun, you have slender fingers, don’t you._ And then, when that same ring slid down the Mandrel, home on the fifth groove, Tsukishima had turned away altogether.

Tobio remembers. He spent so long staring that he never learned his own ring size.

It was that evening that he put his slippers on and made his winding way to Miwa in the study, knocked thrice on the door and crept in. She’d been at her desk, of course, in penguin pyjamas and surrounded by two computers and a tablet, hair held back by paperclips.

_We need to talk_ , Tobio said. _You, me, and— just the brothers. Just them two. Not the parents._

_I’ll see what I can do,_ she’d replied, which was as good as done.

If there’s something the media’s missing out on, it’s the sheer beauty that is a wedding between two houses like theirs. Tobio’s never been awed by the estate, having grown up in it, and being used to the way his parents and Miwa move around it like it’s nothing. He does remember the way Hinata had exclaimed the first time he set foot on the property— ten years ago now— and realised that _this_ was where Tobio lived, that yes, he was driven an hour to and from school every day— but Hinata’s one of his only friends from outside his father’s circles, and he’s more than used to it all now.

Tonight might just be an exception. The sconces lit up with real candles, Miwa at the piano in her gown this time, her gloves draped over Akiteru’s arm, the thick rustling silk of the curtains that hang from ceiling to floor. Yes, every inch of the estate looks the part: it’s a joining of houses between a cabinet minister and an art mogul, and everything from the walls to the sparkling drinks on the side tables to the rings, confirms it. It feels like they’re in a different time.

Nothing else is amazing, or even new, about a group of people dressed well and sober, being cordial— some of them even sincere— and only talking good business. There’s no bad business, after all, especially not today. Never any bad business between politics and art. Never any bad business when it comes to the Kageyama family.

Tsukishima Kei joins that Kageyama family just like that, without fanfare, without anything worthy of a photograph. Just— one second he is Tsukishima, taking Tobio’s hand into his freezing ones and sliding the ring on, and then, the next second, just like that— he isn’t.

The next second, just like that, Tobio takes the ring from the high silver table between them, and takes Tsukishima’s freezing hands, and fixes the lace into place on its prisoner finger. Just like that, Tsukishima Kei is Kageyama Kei, hand curling away the second Tobio leaves it, the transfer done. Rings. Names. Assets. Just like that, everyone’s cheering and clapping, loud but not too loud. The children are in the library— no one here’s young enough to actually be happy.

Two months ago, Miwa had taken only three days to arrange a meeting with Akiteru and— Kei. In a fifty-second floor rooftop bar over the jewelled mirror that was Tokyo Bay, which Tobio only had a few seconds to look at before he went back to staring at Kei. The way the soft lights washed over his face, mixing with the evening blue from outside. The way he didn’t say a word for so long, and nor did Tobio, letting their older siblings do the talking for them.

He’d been listening though, carefully, Tobio remembers; they were doing this for him, after all, even though Miwa and Akiteru were joking, planning to work their way through the entire cocktails menu, _oh, I haven’t drunk like that since college, I think I’d die._ It was for Kei, all of it, so he listened without meeting any of their gazes, his eyes fixed on his own tangled fingers, jaw clenched just like three days ago when they were trying on rings.

Tobio couldn’t even be the one to name the deal himself; didn’t dare. It was Miwa who said it all, voice turning quiet and clipped as she talked business. That they didn’t have to involve the elders in this just yet, and that they’d take care of all the logistics so well that no one would protest anyway. She referred to both Tobio and Kei as if they weren’t in the room, which would’ve made Tobio furious on any other day. But it fell just short that night.

They’d take care of all the logistics, Miwa said. Of letting Kei-kun pursue his interests and career the way he wanted, at his own comfort, even if he decided to leave— and at that, Kei had finally looked up, and the hope on his face was almost feral. Tobio remembers— in that one second, he’d looked like a cornered animal who’d found an opening.

_Six months,_ Miwa said. _They can give the marriage a try until the end of the year, and if it— just doesn’t work, Kei-kun can leave. Still keep our name, still be part of the family, but—_

_But be free,_ Tobio cut in. His first words of the evening, voice hoarse as it fell to the floor he’d spoken to.

No one said anything for a long while. Miwa sat back, and Akiteru finished his drink to have something to do, before finally turning to his brother, and asking, _well?_

Only then had Kei spoken his first and last words of the evening.

_Yes,_ he’d said to the night sky. _Thank you._

♕

Tobio’s father is a cabinet minister. Kei’s mother, the head of the country’s best curation, conservation, and appraisal projects. A journalist would’ve been more interested in the circle of people surrounding the two of _them_ after the ceremony, not the ones around the newlyweds. It’s almost funny, because both grooms only invited one friend each, and Tobio knows that Kei probably told his other friends the same words: _it’s going to be a chore. You don’t need to go through that. We’ll do something else to make up for it later. Something where it’s just us._ You _still have to come though, Hinata. No, no vodka before dinner._

Tobio doesn’t know if a day will come when they’ll feel like celebrating this, so he takes advantage of this moment to meet the only person in Kei’s life who was given the honour of putting up with this chore of a wedding, and sober, at that.

Yachi Hitoka is small, sober, and scared. She’s trying her best not to show it, shoulders straight, but her grip on her purse is so tight her fingertips are white, and every time Hinata says something, she jumps. Tobio lets Hinata take care of being friendly, even though he’s so Hinata about it all— refusing to sit down at the small table they’ve picked out by the window, hovering around and grabbing random drinks off random trays and shoving them in Tobio’s face as if he can drink anything other than water and two sips of champagne tonight. At one point he brings over no less than three tiny children, all squealing at how easily he can lift them up, and while Tobio freezes in place— children are small— it actually gets Kei to look away from the window, and smirk.

Yachi and Tobio both catch it, and then catch each other’s eye— their first greeting, a wordless _did you see that._ Kei’s smirk is gone just as quick, but then Hinata’s unloading one of the girls onto his lap— _here, she’s been asking to touch your hair all evening—_ and now he’s shocked. Hana doesn’t waste a second before reaching for Kei’s glasses, fingers smudging the lenses before curling around the thin black frames, and yanking them off with a shriek.

‘You— shouldn’t do that,’ Kei says helplessly, the first words he’s spoken all evening that aren’t _thank you, of course, yes, my mother did tell me about that_. ‘Can I have my glasses back, please?’

Tobio’s heard his voice enough times in the ten years they’ve been on the edges of each other’s lives, but there’s something stupid and surreal about the soft way he talks to Hana, the first genuine words Tobio’s hearing him say, on the night of their wedding. Something so stupid that he has to clear his throat to swallow a hysterical laugh.

He reaches out and plucks the glasses right out of Hana’s grip, hands them back to Kei— but Hana’s having none of it, starts to cry, and Kei’s rushing to give her the glasses again.

‘It’s fine,’ he says somewhere in Tobio’s direction. Then, after a second: ‘Nothing to see here anyway.’

And there isn’t. Hinata saves the moment by pretending Kei’s talking about how dark the room is, _Kunimi said the candles were romantic, I told him I just want to be able to see what I’m eating,_ and Yachi saves it some more by taking Hana into her own lap and giving her a pearl bracelet to play with. But Kei’s right; there’s nothing to see here, which is, and has always been, the point. Nothing interesting to anyone but the two of them, nothing interesting to anyone but Kei, who is now— unbelievably— Kageyama-san to them all. Nothing interesting to anyone but Tobio, who’s sitting beside his husband, and doesn’t even know how well he can see without his glasses.

♕

At first, they’d planned to do it in the gardens, yes. Under a canopy, lights strung up in the trees, candles at every table, the food and drinks brought outside. The small part of Tobio that had dared to daydream about the ceremony had been happy that the gardens would be the first thing Kei would remember about the wedding— Kei’s seen them before; but never like this. He’s seen the entire place before, but never like this.

Yes. There was a small part of Tobio that had daydreamed about this moment— about sleek black cars pulling up outside the gates one by one, and Kei stepping out of one of them, and seeing— lanterns. Then Tobio. Then, later, the rest of the mansion, windows open to let the singing summer in, Tobio showing him everything from the wine cellar to his new gym in the loft with his trophies and certificates, maybe even telling him about the time he was three years old and accidentally locked himself in the guest bathroom on the second floor. How his father climbed up a ladder and broke in from the window, still in a suit and tie from his morning round of meetings.

Instead, this morning Tobio woke up to the entire house in a mess as his family realised that the weather wasn’t going to listen to them. Now the only lights in the gardens are the electric lamps, their yellow-white glow broken by the thick rain. The first words spoken between Tobio and Kei, alone, are _the ones on the right._

Their parents have settled into his father’s study, where they’ll talk until two in the morning, Tobio knows. Miwa and Akiteru have teamed up with Kunimi and Shimizu to supervise the event staff, to avoid the newlyweds. Tobio knows. There’s finally no more music, no more children, no more Hinata or Yachi or outsiders, and if their siblings came to join them now, there’d be nothing to talk about. Nothing except, maybe, Tobio looking at Miwa and thinking _was this really the better option?_ Maybe, Kei looking at Akiteru and thinking _you really think I can handle this better than you?_

No. Their siblings have to prove that there’s a reason they’re not the ones who just got married, and for tonight, that reason is logistics. So Tobio isn’t surprised when Miwa smiles nervously at both of them and says, _well, Tobio, aren’t you going to show Kei-kun around,_ before disappearing into the kitchens.

Suddenly Tobio is ten years old, bringing a friend home for the first time, and realising how big his house is.

‘The ones on the right,’ he says, after a second, when he sees Kei looking blankly at the two curving flights that lead up from the heart of the living room to the open hallway upstairs. ‘My room’s on the first floor.’ _Our room._ ‘Our room. They— I think they brought your things in last night.’

Kei says nothing, only follows Tobio up those twenty carpeted steps, coming to a stop beside him in front of the door. It’s never seemed so terrifying. For a second nothing happens and they both stare at its perfect black wood, then Tobio realises he’s the one supposed to open it. Wraps a hand around the dull silver of the handle, pushes it down, pushes it open.

Kei’s only request— told to Akiteru, who told it to Miwa, who told— is the first thing their eyes fall on. It stands tall in the middle of the room, so beautiful that it’s— mocking.

Yes. Tobio feels like he’s being made fun of, and so is Kei. The partition almost reaches the ceiling, and is made of three long panels of carved metal and jade-green glass. It looks like it belongs in a castle; it looks too heavy to move, too heavy to fold shut, even by the two of them together. Maybe that’s what feels mocking— _here, isn’t this what you asked for?_ Or maybe it’s the way the dim lamps that were left on throw off the glass and turn the room, the half that they can see, into a gold-lit garden, the most amazing it’s ever looked. There’s new life in it now, a kind there never was before, not in all these years of Tobio living in it. Maybe that’s what feels mocking— _what, aren’t you happy? Congratulations on your new world._

The partition almost reaches the ceiling. Before, on the other side of it, there used to be a small, simple study with Tobio’s desktop, and then his mats and weights, all moved to the loft now. Now, there must be— Tobio guesses— a bed right under the window that’s keeping the roaring rain out, an empty wardrobe, nightstands. Lamps. Another room altogether, barely pretending to be a part of Tobio’s.

He bites the inside of his cheek at a stray, stupid thought— there’s only one bathroom— then notices the bags parked by one end of the partition. Four of them, black and nondescript. Are they large enough to contain an entire life? They don’t look like it.

And— when he sees the way Kei stares at them, he knows he’s right. Knows Kei’s counting in his head all the things he couldn’t bring, even if he can have them brought over later— what did he sacrifice? Books? Coats? His favourite sheets? What is in them?

A single moment then. For just one moment, Tobio sees it again— that animal look on Kei’s face. Like he’s letting himself realise what’s happening, for just one second. Letting himself be scared. He looks like he doesn’t know what to do with the bags, where to start. Which one to unzip first, which one has his nightclothes in it, which one his toothbrush. Which one has his favourite sheets, which one his adolescence. Tobio can see him start to short-circuit with exhaustion, all in one gaze that he shouldn’t even be allowed.

He swallows, then exhales courage. ‘I— could help with the unpack—’

Kei holds up a hand. It’s the one with the ring. Tobio stares at his pale palm, then at the floor.

‘I’ll be fine, thank you,’ Kei says quietly. It’s not cold, but it’s far from warm. Tobio figures that if he were to run away right now, throw the doors open and fling himself outside, the rain would feel the same. Far from warm, but heavy all the same, like ice that has forgotten how to be ice.

There is only one bathroom. Tobio lets Kei get changed first, sits on the edge of his bed— the sheets are green silk tonight, and they smell of those strange, dark flowers that grow in one of the greenhouses, but whoever prepared it didn’t expect more than one person to sleep in it tonight. So Tobio sits on the edge of that open secret and feels the sheets under his fingers, stares at the bag, listens to the rain, tries not to listen to the water running inside the bathroom, tries not to imagine Kei in front of that mirror, his combs and cotton laid out on the marble, the— the monogrammed towels, oh no. Tobio’s tense form on the edge of his bed, silky and sleek and cold. Does Kei like to keep the room warm when he sleeps? Cool? Does he need a lamp, or total darkness? Does any of it matter? They might as well be in two different rooms.

What is on the other side of the jade can only be guessed at, not seen. So as the water shuts off and the door clicks open, he keeps his eyes on the floor when he crosses over for his turn. The floor, at least, is the same.

When he comes back out, it’s to darkness on this side, with only the garden lamps throwing strange blue ghostlike forms on the wall. On his side, his nightlight is a blur past the glass.

_Goodnight, then,_ Tobio wants to whisper. But Kei’s doing such a good job of pretending to sleep. The least Tobio could gift him on their wedding night is to pretend, too.


	2. Chapter 2

The singular difference between art reproduction and art forgery is a signature. The one detail on which depends every single hour of effort, the frayed brushes, the rags, the occasional spell of turpentine poisoning that has you heaving dry over your toilet for hours on end, convinced that this time is the one. That singular detail is in the form of a question: under whose name all this near-death?  


Back in London two years ago, Akaashi had made quick work of Kei; barely had they known each other for twelve hours that Kei's hands were in his hair; it smelled so thickly of fig-wood that it was the only thing in his senses for the two weeks that they then spent together. Akaashi’s fingers around his throat smelled of fig-wood. The downward strike of his hand.  


That first night, when he had lowered the vice of his mouth around Kei's length like he had come to London, to that gallery, to that atelier, with the sole purpose of swallowing him down, Kei had made some inane comment, just before his orgasm, about negative space and frames and Waterhouse, whom they had been faithfully discussing all afternoon in lieu of foreplay. And he _had_ been happy, he had, at his happiest those six months abroad in England where he could talk about the things he loved without opining from the mouth of Tsukishima Kei; where no one cared about who he was, only what he cared about.  


Akaashi didn't care about who he was until he did. He'd interrupted their afterglow, or prolonged it, plucking the cigarette out of Kei's lips before he could light it, and shifting to sit back down on his lap. Legs open, the silk of the robe he stole from Kei sliding over his bruised thighs, and eyes so dark Kei couldn't tell apart iris from pupil. 

'What?' Kei asked.  


'What you said,' Akaashi replied. 'About _Gather Ye Rosebuds._ I liked that. I'm going to steal it for one of my papers.'  


'Steal away,' he said. 'I don't even remember what I said. It's yours as long as you're convincing enough.'  


Akaashi had smiled, just one corner of his mouth, then slipped forward to bite Kei's bottom lip as if remembering, suddenly, that he hadn't eaten all day. 'Like copying your homework but changing the details?'  


'No,' Kei had breathed back, already fumbling for the sash of the stolen robe. 'Like taking my homework, swallowing it, rewriting it, and doing a better job at being Tsukishima Kei than me.'  


'That's the opposite of convincing.' Fig-wood in his nose, mouth, ears. 'And how do I get any credit, then? If I'm pretending to be Tsukishima Kei?'  


'You don't. That's the best part.' The sash slid free; along with it the first of Akaashi's moans. 'Your credit is that no one realised you aren't me.'  


'And why should I— be so happy— about that?'  


'Why shouldn't you?' Kiss, kiss, bite. Wine, dark. 'You just changed the definition of truth. Not all liars can do that.'  


Had he guessed that he would see Akaashi Keiji again, he wouldn't have opened his mouth again that night. But Kei had allowed himself a mistake, and allowed Akaashi the one commodity he had refused everyone in the city of London: truth. The truth about what his family did in the name of art restoration and reproduction. The truth about why Kei grew up holding a paintbrush before he held a hand. The truth, two years later, about why this would be the last time they slept together, because even Kei, bitter and petrified and resentful of Kageyama Tobio as he was, could not allow himself to cheat on the fraud of their marriage. Keeping up the lie perfectly, as it were; something not all liars could do either.  


All things considered, it was good that neither of them had fallen in love. Good for Akaashi, who could still demand wedding pictures and toast him all the way from Florence, and good for Kei, who, never having experienced love, would have one less thing to miss for the rest of his life.

♛

For a fortnight, every morning he wakes up feels like the first. There is a minute where he is just as bewildered at finding himself in a bed that isn't his own, then just as bemused at remembering that it is, now. Every morning he reaches for his phone to check the time, and blinks, blank, at the lacework of the ring on his finger. _Ah, that’s right._ Every morning he's up ten minutes ahead of schedule, every morning he remembers he barely has the schedule he used to, anymore. 

It's more his fault than anyone else's— Miwa told him on his first day itself that they would only need a week longer to prepare his studio, and indeed a week later, the sharp-faced, sleepy-voiced staff member that Kei has since come to know as Kunimi, had shown him to a door at the end of the third-floor hallway, one that opened into a sunlit, spacious dream of a room. There were already three easels propped up against the walls, right next to two impossibly large windows facing north, ones that looked like they had only recently been carved into the walls. A tool cabinet on wheels, polished black wood and silver accents, glass on its doors to show off the best brushes money can buy. Vertical racks prepared to hold his canvases. An LED panel on the ceiling, corner to corner, ready for him should he wish to work at night. 

It was a dream. Kei had stared at it for ten entire minutes without stepping foot inside, and tried to imagine the day his things would fill it, once they had been brought over by the movers. It didn't seem to work— the placement was always centimetres off, as if he was trying to superpose negatives over one another, and never managing to get it quite right. The apple was always on the very edge of the table, impossibly balanced. Kei's hands were always too small. 

He doesn't have the schedule he used to, because time seems to work differently on the Kageyama estate, as if he accidentally changed worlds instead of cities. It's nothing like the house he grew up in, which was bright and full of warmth, the sound of his brother's laughter, and paintings and paintings and paintings lining every wall, so that Kei never wanted for something to marvel at— not even when he was older, because his mother would have the paintings changed, something new to study. New reproductions— new forgeries. New money.

Here, when he cracks open his blinds every morning, having shut them tight the night before so that in the darkness he could pretend he was home, the sun is never quite up. Every day he misses the hour of its zenith, and though he knows that's common for August, it always fills him with a sort of dread, as if he's forgetting something that he can't afford to forget. Every evening the sun, barely having been there, sets too quick and leaves him feeling unaccomplished. No, it isn't as if he accidentally changed worlds— he feels like he changed seasons, crossed over some invisible line into a country where it is always that one week before winter. The shadows are long and the air is cold, and no matter how many lamps he lights, he can never quite see well enough. His parents-in-law are witty but not too warm, as if they value his intelligence too much to pretend, and would rather respect him than try to earn his friendship. That too, he supposes, is his fault— it isn't as if Tobio's mother didn't try a hundred times this summer to get to know him. A hundred times more than her son ever did.

Every night, when he goes to sleep in the complete darkness of the room, is the same. Uniform and comforting in its heavy silence and stillness, and nothing like the very first one, when he had laid tense and shaking under the sheets for hours, drowning in the unfamiliarity of sleeping, suddenly, in a room that wasn't his own. And damn it, Kei is twenty-five. Is that the age to tear up over such things?

And yet he had. 

♛

There is another thing on the Kageyama estate that is constant, in that it changes every day: Kei's husband. 

If, in fact, Tobio could do a better job at avoiding him, Kei would be able to forget that they are husbands. Unfortunately Tobio is terrible at it— not for lack of trying— and not a very good liar. This results in him being everywhere Kei goes, and results in them both looking at the floor, Tobio going red, Kei going cold. 

Kei tries, just for Tobio, to create a routine out of thin air, if not a schedule. He always goes to the library at two in the afternoon, after lunch. Always steps out to map the gardens bit by bit at five, in the clear post-rain air (it's always the hour after the rain here, and always the week before winter) and always comes back to play aimlessly with charcoals in his studio at nine, after dinner. 

He follows his clock like religion, giving Tobio every window to stay out of his way, and yet they always run into each other. To his credit, Tobio moves fast, and most of the time is in the middle of exiting the room Kei is about to enter. Armed with files from the library and shouldering past Kei with a quiet _sorry, excuse me._ Coming in from his run in the gardens just as Kei steps out, bent over with a hand on a knee, checking his watch for his heart rate, then straightening up in a flash when he spots Kei, looking like he wishes he could quite literally run away. In the hallway outside the studio— only one set of keys goes in the new door, and those keys are in Kei's pocket— in his thick night-robe and slippers, a— Kei thinks that's a manga— under his arm and a mug of tea in the opposite hand. 

_Sorry,_ Tobio always says. _Excuse me. Could you— could you pass me the— thank you._

In the mornings, he's gone before Kei wakes up. At night, he stays late in the study with his sister while Kei calls up Tadashi and Hitoka and never Akiteru, and reports, with hysterically sarcastic flair, his discoveries of the day regarding the estate. 

On the fifteenth night Kei realises that the only times he speaks to his husband are lunch and dinner, that he doesn't know what he has been doing or thinking for the past fifteen days, and that he can't spend a single day longer like this, let alone the next six months— if Tobio even honours his deal, and lets him go.

But as it is, Kei, pessimistic for his own best interests, refuses to believe that the promise is real. And in that event, he will have to get used to this new life, and choose between breaking the monotony— talking to Tobio— and making it unbearable, or maintaining the stillness between them that will never be conducive to life, but, at least, maintaining with it a silence that he might one day get used to. 

Kei makes his decision. Closes the blinds, turns out the light, and goes to sleep in the bed, which is new, but irreparably his.

♛

Then, on the sixteenth morning, he wakes up to the sound of knocking. It takes him a full minute to realise the reason it sounds so strange is because it's on glass, and then another minute to realise that it's coming from— the partition.  


He rolls onto his side and squints sleepily at what is clearly Tobio's tall form, its edges illuminated by his lamp, then darkened and blurred by the thickness of the glass. Kei squints, sleepily, at the motion of Tobio's hand tapping gingerly against it. His ring is making the sound, emerald against jade. Stone against stone. 

Kei sits up so fast his head spins, heart hammering. 'Yes?'

Silence for a second, as if Tobio didn't actually expect him to respond. 

Then, stutteringly: 'Do you want to— eat breakfast with me?'

♛

The gardens at the Kageyama estate are some of the most beautiful Kei has ever seen in his life, including in all his trips abroad. He isn't sure what it is about them. Yes, they have that quiet quality about them, timeless and temporal all at once, as if he could imagine ghosts upon ghosts walking on the same winding paths as him, but as if none of those ghosts matter, just like he doesn't, because the green has no need for him to exist. Yes, the smell is dense and wet and divine this rainy time of the year, at odds with the winter that looms around the mansion itself. But there is something else to it that he can't put his finger on. 

There is something else, then, to Kageyama Tobio's beauty that Kei can't put his finger on either. Something newly arresting that years of objective observation couldn't have prepared him for. Existing for most of his life on the periphery of Kei's, he'd always been gorgeous, but insignificant. A faraway fixture. Now the fixture is close, and moves, and isn't insignificant anymore.  


The fixture is, in fact, having breakfast with him out in the gardens. 

The sun is still skulking; it's dark enough outside to warrant lamps. The table they're sitting at, under a canopy on the back patio to protect them from the dawn-drizzle, is adorned with thick candles. Their flames are almost unnaturally motionless. Beyond the patio, the wet green of the gardens is only faintly visible; if Kei hadn't managed to establish the cartography of the place already, he'd almost believe them to be a real forest, stretching on with no path in, no path out. 

The green is only faintly visible; Kei tries to focus on it anyway. The alternative is something he is so unprepared for that he regrets saying _yes_ half an hour ago, regrets parting his hair and scrutinising himself in the mirror, as if how he looks matters in the least now. (As if it ever did.) Regrets spending five entire minutes trying to choose between shirts when he's never seen Tobio in a colour other than black. Regrets coming downstairs, walking into the kitchen— his first time seeing it, all polished counters and recessed lights, a bar and breakfast table no doubt for warmer gatherings— and out its back door. 

'Sir?' 

Kei starts. The chef is waiting on his right with a tray that looks too heavy to hold, though there's no strain on his face. He looks pleased, actually, as if it's the first time he's seeing Kei. Swallowing the realisation that in a way, it is, Kei moves his elbows away from the table and watches as bowls and glasses are quickly placed before him. Steaming soup and rice in ceramic, fish, pickled plums. A carafe of water with mint leaves, floating bright and rough. 

But— across the divide of the deathly-still candles, there is a glass of orange juice, and one single, large bowl. Kei blinks at it. Yogurt, blueberries, and oats. 

On Kei's first morning, when he'd had breakfast with the entire family, he'd been asked: _tea or coffee?_ He'd said _coffee, please_ without a second thought, and only when it was served to him, boiling and dark and bitter in his gold-rimmed cup, had he realised that he'd forgotten to ask for milk. There was a pitcher of it on that long table, within arm's reach too, but he couldn't make himself do it and draw attention. Couldn't, that first morning, stand the idea of even one of them laughing good-naturedly and saying something like _oh, so Kei-kun likes milk in his coffee, good to know._  


_Fuck you,_ Kei had thought, staring at the way Tobio's father briskly buttered his toast, knife scraping. His mother's delicate grip around her porcelain teacup. Miwa, in a floor-length robe, nails still painted dark from the wedding the night before, laughing at something her father said as she reached for the fruit platter, plucked out a bunch of unseasonal grapes, plump and red. Tobio. Sitting across from Kei, staring down at his pickled vegetables, already dressed though the rest of his family was still in nightclothes. As if he was the only one, that first day, who took Kei's wrath seriously.

_Fuck you,_ Kei had thought. _Fuck this coffee. Fuck this._

He watches as the chef disappears into the orange warmth of the kitchen, tray tucked under his arm. The drizzle is turning the slightest bit stronger now; he can hear it on the canvas above their heads. The steam from his perfect, traditional meal is making his palms damp. 

'That's all you eat?' He asks the question before it can even finish forming in his head, and for a second, wants to pitch himself headfirst into the mud beyond the patio steps. 

But Tobio looks up, mouth falling open, as if he didn't expect Kei to actually speak to him, and Kei would laugh at that if he wasn't just as shocked himself. 

'I— yeah,' Tobio replies, haltingly. 'I— don't like savoury food in the morning. Or...hot food.' He looks down at his stupid— Kei swallows, suddenly half-hysterical— his _stupid_ bowl of yogurt, then back up at Kei, eyes wide as if he's been caught committing a crime. 'There's— it has protein powder in it.' 

'Protein powder,' Kei repeats. Nods. 'All right.' Oh, God, he has never felt this out of his depth in his life. 'Sorry for asking.' 

'No!' It's too quick. Tobio looks down again, then out at the endless trees, then into the crater of one of the candles, already filled with molten wax. Kei thinks he hears him swear, under his breath, and only then realises how tense he is. How tense Kei himself is, holding himself still, not having picked up his chopsticks, not having taken even a sip of the water. 'My sister— Miwa always laughs at me too. She thinks it's childish.' 

Kei clears his throat. 'Well, it's not.' He takes a deep breath, then reaches for his chopsticks. The drizzle is turning into rain. Should he tell Tobio? That he doesn't like savoury breakfasts either? That back home he had an infinite supply of wax-wrapped pancakes in the fridge, ready to heat in twos and threes when he wasn't awake enough to do more than stick them in the microwave and reach for the honey jar? That back home none of them managed to eat breakfast together at the same time either, so he appreciates that the Kageyamas made an effort for him for an entire week before slipping back into their routines, Kei an ambulant, pretty, new fixture in their house. That Tobio's mother still makes that effort, making sure she's at the table with her accounts every day at nine when he comes down freshly-showered and craving anything but miso and mackerel, but that it will never be the same as walking into his own kitchen? Just as big and bright and expensive as Tobio's, but with Akiteru cross-legged on the counter scrolling through overly complicated soup recipes on his tablet, speaker plugged in and blasting glam rock from the 80's. 

But that isn't his kitchen anymore. He hasn't spoken to Akiteru since the wedding, and doesn't know when he will. Only answers his mother's questions with three words at a time, knowing she'll get all the intelligence she needs from Tobio's own mother. So here Kei is, staring down at a breakfast he doesn't want, while his husband dips a spoon into yogurt and blueberries and says nothing else to indicate why on earth he thought eating together was a good idea.

Kei lowers the chopsticks, reaches for the coffee. It is still scalding. The drizzle has turned into rain.

♛

That afternoon, he's the one knocking on the partition.  


Tobio is in the room; has been so for an hour already, slipping in so quietly after lunch that Kei almost thought it was one of the staff, come in to pass a cleaning hand or change the sheets. He'd only realised it was Tobio when he heard the heavy sound of him settling in the bed, then the unmistakeable rustle of paperwork. Just like Kei's mother, he imagines, leaning back against the pillows with a glass of wine, signing the last cheques of the day.

Kei himself is surrounded by three sketchbooks, the newest one a parting present from his father, a twentieth in the pile of goat-leather Smythsons that are their primary method of exchanging affection. He's been scribbling idly, but every five minutes his attention keeps flying to the window beside his bed, and the undeniable, if faint, rays of sunlight that are falling through it and onto the carpeted floor. It's the first time that there isn't a single hint of rain, and because he knows he'll have to survive it all of coming September yet, his feet are itching to take advantage of the weather. 

It takes an hour for him to make up his mind, the room filled with the sounds of two different kinds of paper, two different kinds of pens. Kei decides that he can't let Tobio take all the credit for making miracles happen— first breakfast, now this— sits up from bed, makes his way to the partition. 

Tobio's pen stops the moment Kei's knuckles hit the glass. If Kei to look somewhere other than at his slippered feet, he'd see and not only hear the speed with which Tobio sits up, a comical mirror of Kei himself, early this morning. 

Kei doesn't wait for him to speak. 'Do you think you could show me around the greenhouses?' 

♛

The reason Kei hasn't been to the greenhouses on his own so far is because people are only easy to avoid outdoors. The same reason Kei, when he isn't locked up in his studio, spends most of his time in the gardens. Out in the open, he isn't obligated to greet anyone, make any small talk, or even look. Inside the closed glass walls of a greenhouse, he would have to perform the act of entering, in the first place, and then make his presence known. Fifteen days are nowhere near enough for him to have that kind of confidence, or even energy. It's ironic, really; anyone less well-versed in the realities of their world would've assumed that the son of a family with yakuza ties would be more assertive, he thinks. 

(Luckily those who aren't aware of how this world works are never an active part of it; the assumptions made about Kei have nothing to do with his demeanour, which the people around him are actually most exigent about given where he comes from. Given why he is even here, his money exchanged for the Kageyama name, assets for titles. Power for legitimacy.)

Inside, people are not easy to avoid, but with Tobio leading him, he's spared the nervous ordeal of speaking. Instead Tobio pushes the door open carefully and the only thing Kei has to think about is— green. How green, until it's not; the overwhelming jungle-dense crisscross of vines and leaves interrupted every so often with flowers, so many of them that Kei thinks, for a moment, that he'll go dizzy just from the idea of them. Fronds and fronds of ferns, and bright-red geraniums, and a hundred other colours. 

The air is thick in that comforting way, when the difference in its texture is safe because it's a guarantee of growth. Even the sun, whatever of it makes its way inside, falls differently on the stone floor. This is why Kei wanted to come here: he wanted to see one place where the constant rain wouldn't matter; where nothing of the outside world would matter; sun, clouds, winter, summer. But it isn't the only reason. 

No, the real reason is this: the way he feels, despite himself, the smallest of smiles tugging at his lips as he looks at the beauty around himself. Reliable, undeniable. It's barely been a minute, and he knows that he'll be coming back here every day, no matter that the mud will get in the way every single time, like it did for them both just now. No, for a second, even the wet stains of it on Tobio's shoes are beautiful. 

'Gorgeous, aren't they?' 

Kei jumps. As if out of nowhere, someone is beside him. Slight at first glance, then filling out the lines of himself, light shirt, black apron. Hair a dark grey, curling in the humidity— Kei's will, too, soon— and a brilliant smile on his face. He looks the same age as them, or Kunimi, or Shimizu. 

'Sugawara Koushi,' he says. His eyes are light with humour. 'Tobio—' _Tobio?_ '—just told me you'd been running away from me all this while? I don't bite, you know. Nor do my flowers. You can come around any old time.' 

Kei stares at him, then, helplessly over his shoulder, at Tobio, who seems to be extremely interested in inspecting the soil quality of a potted fern all of a sudden. First lesson learned: never say anything even remotely compromising to his husband. 

'I,' he begins, then clears his throat. Who is this? 'Thank you for having me. Tsu— Kageyama Kei.' 

'I know,' Sugawara replies, with another winning smile. 'In case you're having a stroke because of how uncouth and inappropriate I am, it's because I'm a distant cousin. Well,' and here he _winks,_ 'not distant enough for them not to let me handle this entire place fresh out of college. But distant enough that you didn't notice me at the wedding.'

'I see,' Kei says weakly. 'I apologise—'

'Oh, don't.' Sugawara squints at something just beyond Kei, strides forward to check a leaf, then laughs it off. When he turns around the smile is back. 'Welcome to the family. And don't forget what I said— any old time. What's his is yours, and all that. Though I _will_ kick you out if you ever try to steal a flower without my permission. And no parties here, no matter what Hinata tries to tell you.' 

_What's his is yours._

He's married. The manager of this greenhouse just spoke to him with the most candour anyone has accorded him since he got here. Kei has nothing to do with his life anymore and can't remember everything that mattered as little as six months ago, because— what he couldn't put his finger on early this morning— this greenhouse is his now. These gardens are his now. 

What he couldn’t— earlier— put his finger on about Kageyama Tobio, standing behind Sugawara and cupping the blood-bloom of a geranium in his large, shy hands, is that Kageyama Tobio is his husband now. 


	3. Chapter 3

One day in the last week of August, almost a month after the wedding, Miwa walks into his new gym. It's not even seven in the morning but Tobio's been working up a sweat for a half hour, the incline on his treadmill a bit ridiculous, just like the speed. His hair, pushed back with a bunny headband Hana gave him, is dripping down his neck and back, his dri-fit doing half the work of keeping him alive, the mindless music beating over the speakers doing the other half.  


Still, when he gets off the treadmill to face his sister, he has to take a full minute to catch his breath, hands on his knees, panting as she turns the music down. She doesn't spare his headband a laugh, which is how Tobio knows it's serious. (Well, no. He knew it was serious when he saw her awake before eight.)  


‘Next Saturday,' she says as Tobio wipes down the handles and screen, then himself. 'Alisa's new work is coming to one of their galleries.' _Their_ galleries. Tobio hears the emphasis. 'It's the perfect occasion for your first official appearance together.'  


One part of him is happy at the news. A month since the wedding is also a month where he had to lay low. Not only because he was waiting on instructions from his father and Miwa, but also because he didn't dare to invite Kei to any of his usual haunts, and didn't dare to go alone either. It's a month he's spent not going outside the estate a single time except once, at three in the morning, when he snuck out of the bedroom to ride his bike in the foothills. He didn't even get to see the fireworks at Watarase this year.  


Another part of him— remembers, even though he's barely forgotten, that this marriage is not for play. The inauguration of a new collection is barely the event of the year, but it will be, for the right people, when they show up together.  


_That's what this is really about,_ Miwa had said at the beginning of the year, when Tobio had blinked at her in something more than shock. When he’d first found out what his family had been planning for years. _The long game. We already protect them under the table. But this way, we strengthen them above it, too. Their name is in danger. So we're changing it._  


And— Tobio's never pretended not to know how many forgeries have been thought up, painted, appraised and sold under the Tsukishima name. And he's never pretended not to know how much of a hand his father has in making sure those operations run smoothly. _  
_

_Families like ours go back,_ his mother had explained years ago, when Tobio, eleven and sulky, had thrown a fit about having to go on their annual week-long trip to the mountains where their parents would only drink and talk about boring things, where Miwa would sneak off to make out with Akiteru four times a day— why _didn't_ they get married— where Tsukishima Kei would ignore him the entire week, shutting himself up in his room with a stack of books and sketchpads. _We do some things because we've always done them. Not always because they're fun._  


_The long con, you mean,_ Tobio had thought at the beginning of this year, when he'd been allowed a full day— two days, even— of anger before accepting, as always, the decisions of his family. Which were always for his own good, of course. Which are always for his own good.  


This could do them good, too. Tobio doesn't know what the hell took over his brain in the middle of the month, when they ate the world's most painful breakfast and were made fun of for half an hour straight by Suga-san in the afternoon, before returning to the house. Tobio doesn't know about Kei— no, he can guess, actually— but he'd definitely told himself, wiping his shoes on the mat at the front door, that he'd never try this again. And he can guess what Kei thought from the way he never brought it up, but at least— and this is what he reminds himself as he tries to fight the fear of going out in public together— at least Suga-san says Kei's been going to the greenhouses every day.  


_He loves the perennials,_ Suga-san had reported just last night. _Though I told him, wait 'til the touch-me-nots bloom next spring. You'll go crazy._  


'Okay,' Tobio says. Miwa, despite herself, relaxes mid-lecture about what he should and shouldn't do, as if he hasn't been trained to be on his best behaviour all his life. 'I'll ask him if he's fine with it.'  


But that's useless. Of course Kei will be fine with it— he has no choice. It's for his own good, after all.

♕

On Saturday, Tobio notices that the bathroom is big. Its floor, white marble, stretches so long between the bathtub and the shower that an entire television setup could fit in there. The counter and its cabinets take an entire wall, the mirror spanning its full length, spotless and bright. On the right side by the door, Tobio's things. Shaving machine, cologne, hand cream. On the left, Kei's bright little mess of products Tobio hasn't dared to sneak a look through, not even when he's guaranteed to be alone. The walls beyond are wide apart enough to leave room for echoes.  


Tobio, actually, wouldn't be noticing how big the bathroom is supposed to be, if it didn't feel like the smallest space in the world right now. 

It's his fault. If he was going to be nice, he should've been nice more efficiently— but as it is, in his hurry to grab his things and go shower in the guest bathroom so that Kei could dress up in peace, he forgot at least half of the things he needed, and had to sheepishly make his way back only in his pants with a towel around his neck, jaw still smarting from aftershave, crossing his fingers that Kei would be done by now and downstairs in the living room making small talk with Miwa, or on the phone with whoever _Akaashi_ is, who makes his voice sound so soft and satisfied. (Tobio's only eavesdropped twice, accidentally. Both times, he gave up thirty seconds in, the mix of English and Japanese too much for his flustered ears.)

No such luck. A minute ago, Tobio cracked the bathroom door open and stepped in, and was greeted by the sight of Kei, fully dressed yet naked somehow, and has forgotten what to do with his eyes since. 

The bathroom is the smallest space in the world. There's too much Kei in it. Two of him, one before the mirror and one behind it, both tall and fair and— white shirt, dark blazer, and a scarf that he'd been wrapping around his neck when Tobio came in. It's hanging loosely over his shoulders now, its two-toned silk still folded where it falls down his chest. His hair is still damp from his shower, its curls so perfect, so golden, over his flushed skin. No glasses, his eyes wide and surprised and more amber than amber. The bathroom smells like him, leftover steam heavy with his cologne.  


Tobio is in dress pants with a heavy towel around his neck, his hair so wet it's plastered to his forehead. His mouth is open. But so is Kei's, even as he averts his gaze the moment it goes as low as Tobio's chest.  


'Sorry,' he says, even though Tobio's the stupid one, barging in here. 'I'm almost done.' 

Most of Tobio wants to excuse himself and go back out, wait until Kei's ready before getting dressed himself. But— then Kei reaches up to tuck his hair behind his ear, and Tobio catches sight of the ring, and a chill goes through him, a thrill. Because Kei looks gorgeous. He looks like this is his hundredth exhibit opening, which it is, and that he can't be bothered to dress up more than this. But he looks careful, like he remembers what this really is, that this is the first time he's going to be seen as Kageyama Kei.

He looks like Tobio's husband, which he is. Gorgeous, bored, and married to Tobio. Red in the face at the sight of him.

'Can I—' _Stay?_ 'I think we might get late if—' 

Kei doesn't say anything, but he does nod, and after a second, steps back. Tobio watches for a second longer as he faces the mirror again, then turns away himself. Lifts the towel and takes to his hair, wringing the water out of it so harshly he hurts his own scalp. Then lowers it again and stares, this time through the mirror, as Kei picks out a small vial from the things he has strewn out on his side of the counter and leans forward, so close to the mirror his nose almost touches it.

Tobio's sure Kei can sense his eyes. Tries to busy himself again, to his credit, slipping into his own shirt— black and safe— opening a drawer to pull out the hairdryer. But once he's plugged it in he freezes again, even as his hair continues to drip down his neck, dampening his shirt. 

Kei is smudging kohl onto the lower edges of his eyes with the tip of his little finger. His left hand is pulling his skin taught, ring glinting under the light of the mirror, twice over. One before it, one behind it. The kohl is powdered, a dozen dark crystals of it scattering on the thin skin right under Kei's eyes, clinging to the tips of his long lashes. He's doing it quickly, like he knows Tobio's watching and wants to get it over with as soon as possible, but his hand is skilled, careful. The Kei in the mirror is looking only at himself, Tobio looking, too, as just three swipes of his finger transform his gaze into something— sharp and dark. 

That same thrill goes through Tobio again. An hour and a half from now they'll step into a gallery together and people will look at Kei, see this, his kohl-lined eyes and two-toned scarf and the ring on his finger, and despite everything, they'll think _well, what a handsome couple._ Tobio, who's never given a second's thought to his own appearance, can't stop seeing them in his mind's eye. Seeing himself, seeing a third Kei, not the one before the mirror or behind it, but one who isn't here yet, who lives an hour and a half in the future, in the cold open air of the outside world. They're going outside. 

'Do you like contemporary art?' Kei asks, suddenly, as he wipes his finger clean and reaches for a brush. Keeps looking at himself as he gets rid of the stray powder on his cheeks. 'Or are you going to be bored to death?' 

'I like art,' Tobio answers, which is the only right thing to say to the heir of an art empire. 'I don't know the first thing about it, though. I just— look, I guess.' 

Kei doesn't reply for so long that Tobio, convinced he's said the wrong thing anyway, goes back to fiddling with the hairdryer, twisting the head this way and that before putting it down and reaching for the towel again. 

But then Kei is stepping past him with what sounds like— a huff of breath, or a laugh. Tobio can't really tell, what with the roaring in his ears, much louder than the hairdryer would've been.

'Well, you'll certainly have lots to look at tonight,' he says, before closing the door behind him.

♕

Nothing could've prepared Tobio for how much there is to look at. Not the dark wet stretches of the road from the estate to the city, the car's engine eating the distance, the only sound its quiet humming and the rain. And Tobio's phone, going off every ten minutes with texts from Miwa until he turns the notifications off, if only because Kei tenses every time the beep sounds, though he's trying his best not to show it.  


It's an hour and a half to the gallery, long enough for his nervous knees to have started hurting. He takes a second to stretch when they step out under the awning, then another second to bite his tongue. This is exactly why Miwa was texting him every ten minutes— he's stepped out of the car as if he was the only one in it, and now he's standing here looking like an idiot, waiting for Kei to step out too, all on his own. He's glad no one's around; there's plenty of time to slip into the act once they're inside the gallery where at least a couple of photographers will be waiting. For now no one notices his slip-up, the way he twists his watch while Kei straightens his scarf, the way they look at each other— lost, though they had an hour and a half to prepare. 

The car pulls away from the entrance; now it's only them, the doorman who couldn't be less interested in them, and the little stretch of blue carpet under their feet. Tobio takes a deep breath, but before he can say anything, Kei turns to him. 

'Give me your arm,' he says, holding out a hand. Then, after a pause: 'Come on.'  


Tobio steps forward, and tries his best not to stiffen as he feels Kei's arm wind through his, shoulders brushing through four layers of fabric. Tobio wonders if they should've held hands instead, but the thought of that— and in front of others— this is already bad enough as it is. So he squares his shoulders and puts his hand in his pocket as Kei's fingers wrap around his upper arm lightly, and takes another deep breath before heading towards the doors.  


The moment they're on the other side, the air changes, and with it, Kei. There's no simpler way to put it. Tobio _feels_ him stand straighter, head held just a little higher, fingers going tight for just a second as they make their way down the hall, boots clicking on the tiles. Feels him breathe in sudden and deep just as they round the curve to open doors of the exhibit, like he's saying _here goes_ to himself. 

_Here goes._ The moment they step into the room, the bright lights making Tobio blink, Kei slips into his element. Suddenly doesn't seem to mind that he has a husband hanging off his arm who he's had four meals and half a conversation with, only has eyes for the room, not even the people in it. 

And it _is_ beautiful. Or at least Tobio thinks it is. There's so much colour in it he doesn't know where to start, so many shapes he doesn't know if he's supposed to fit them into a whole, look at them one by one, or blend them out into a mess. He's more than used to Alisa's work by now, has been inside her studio since he was twelve, gawking at her canvases— crimson, cobalt, chrome— while she and Miwa made plans for Saturday night clubbing— but it's always something else to see it displayed outside. Her studio is always just as big a mess of colours, yes, but it's cozy, and this is the opposite. The colours are sharper, more dangerous because they're deliberate. Paintings placed with calculation from floor to ceiling, the lights harsh and white, and in the middle of the room, an unfinished canvas still on its easel. 

Tobio isn't surprised that Kei doesn't have time for the people in the room. They all look so dull next to the paintings. Camel coats and black turtlenecks and dark blue jeans. Even Kei and Tobio would blend in if allowed.

But they're not. As soon as Tobio thinks _boring,_ looking at the half-strangers in the room, he spots Akiteru, dark maroon blazer, hair bright like Kei's. Akiteru's eyes go to their arms first, lips parting in something that isn't a smile, before it is. Then he's striding to them, his greeting so soft it's almost drowned out by the piano in the background, and Kei's answer so quiet Tobio doesn't even hear it. 

'There's five different people dying to see you two,' Akiteru laughs. 'Most of all Haiba-san herself. Just went upstairs for something, she'll be back any moment now. Kei, Murata-san was asking about last summer in Prague, I told him—' 

Tobio doesn't recognise any faces, only knows that he's supposed to. Miwa's the one with a perfect phonebook printed in her memory, always clueing him in, _that one's Sugimoto Haruki from Okinawa, the one in the red tie, don't look now. His son wants to go into karate or something, can you take care of it?_ But Miwa isn't here tonight, and he really should've read at least one of her texts, because the point of this exercise is to show everyone around here whose name Kei's taken on, and instead it's been all of three minutes and Tobio's blinking around the room like a deer in the headlights, and he hasn't even properly greeted his own brother-in-law. 

On cue, Kei tugs at him, gentle. 'Don't look so lost, they love that. Come on.' 

And just like that, he finds himself being led around the room by— his husband— stopping every metre to greet someone new, Kei replacing Miwa as Tobio's living contact list, taking him through introductions so smoothly it's like this is his day job. Tobio knows enough about the art world to know that the Tsukishima family is beyond any kind of need for networking, but Kei's courtesy seems different right now. Like he's no longer a Tsukishima now, and needs to present himself to the world all over again. 

That world includes Tobio. They've been married for nearly two months now, but it feels like it's the first time he's seeing Kei, really seeing him, and isn't it funny that it's right when he's putting on the act of the century? Hand going up and down Tobio's arm every once in a while, a smile on his face that seems false even though Tobio's never seen a real one to compare it with, his voice carefully sweet. At one point he lets go of Tobio and leaves him to stare in a kind of awe that Tobio hopes will be mistaken for adoration. 

It's possessiveness, he realises, the thrill from before. It makes no sense, even though it does. A new husband, besotted with how Kei knows all these _things_. Telling Murata-san how his Prague trip was last summer, _there's a small restaurant in the city centre— best chicken Kiev I've ever eaten, and you know I'm a picky eater, Murata-san._ Talking about how much his mother loved Alisa's collection from three years ago, how disappointed she is not to be able to make it here tonight. 

And still— there's something off about it all, but Tobio puts it down to nerves. It's surreal, after all, like the world's most stressful first date. 

Then Alisa comes back downstairs, and understanding attacks Tobio like an impatient animal. _Are you really that stupid?_

'Tobio!' she sings, the moment she steps into the room. 'Oh my God, come here!' 

She isn't a celebrity, not the kind who'd make heads turn in the street for anything other than how stunning she looks. Hair in perfect silver waves down to the small of her back, scarlet suit and stilettos, her lips the same shade. She isn't even the most unusual thing the art world has seen, even Tobio knows that. But she _is_ an artist, an amazing one, one all the right people know. And that's to say— heads do turn when she walks forward to take both of Tobio's hands, even though no one's surprised, just smiling. All of them but one.

Because even as he squeezes Alisa's hands and replies to her breathless, pleased questions, he can see the smile slip completely off Kei's face, replaced by something— not rude, but closed-off. He only brings it back under control when Tobio and Alisa both turn to him, Alisa still beaming, Tobio hot in the face. 

'Nee-san,' he begins, then steps closer to Kei. 'This is—'

'I know,' Alisa says, smile softer now. Kinder. Why is it kind? 'It's lovely to meet you, Kei.' 

'The honour is all mine,' Kei replies. _Honour._ Why honour? Why does he look like he wants to say a million other things but is swallowing them all?

Alisa seems to catch it too, because she only nods, smiles a little wider, a little kinder. Then turns back to Tobio. 'So, which one's your favourite? You have ten seconds to pick.' 

Tobio huffs. ' _Nee-san._ You know that's no good. I need a full hour.' 

'Worth a shot,' she laughs. Then, without warning, turns to Kei again, who looks more like a deer in the headlights than Tobio felt a while ago. 'I know I can count on Kei to pick one, though. Kei?'

He definitely takes more than ten seconds to reply, because he takes almost twenty just to blink at her in surprise. No one else in the room cares; they've gone back to their talks and viewings, even the photographer more focused on whatever discussion Akiteru's having in the far corner. 

'I think it's a trick question,' Kei finally answers. 'I feel like I'm supposed to say _the easel in the centre, of course,_ when it's actually something you've hidden between two big canvases.' 

'Not a trick question,' Alisa says. 'I want to know which one _you_ like, not which one you're supposed to understand best. Tobio here—' She motions to him with a wink— '—usually just points randomly and says _that one, because it's more blue than red, and red gives me a headache._ ' 

'An— acceptable deduction,' Kei says blankly. 

'One that I only accept out of love,' she grins. 'Now come with me and tell me why you like the easel— because I know you do— and if you say something about the infinite potential of an unfinished canvas, you owe me a drink. Actually, you brother told me you were at the Barnes atelier—' 

In a second, Tobio's forgotten. Alisa herds Kei off with a hand at his elbow, and while he doesn't stumble, he does look behind just once, and Tobio has to hide a smile at how dazed he looks. But suddenly it isn't funny anymore— Tobio’s standing next to a wall of colourful paintings that he wouldn't be able to pick a favourite from even after an hour, but he's the one who was asked, first.

That's what felt off, he realises, something cold sinking through him as he thinks about Kei's wide eyes. What felt off was that in all the discussions Kei was having so smoothly, Tobio in tow, no one asked him what he thought about the exhibit itself. Only every detail around it, and every detail in his life around the art, but not the art itself. No one but Alisa— and was that— is this the first time someone's asked Kei something as simple as _which one do you like best?_ Something as simple as his opinion?

The thrill turns cold. Tobio realises that Alisa is Miwa's best friend, not Akiteru's. Realises that it's not a coincidence that her work showed up here after the wedding. Remembers why he's here. As if he had the right to forget it for a single second.

♕

The drive back is silent, but differently. Earlier it was all nervous energy, Tobio clenching and unclenching his fists, Kei tuned into the slightest sound from his phone. Now it's something colder. Not their usual silence. Something colder, almost like they've had some kind of fight without Tobio realising it, like he's supposed to guess why Kei's angry at him. If he even is. How would Tobio know when Kei never talks? When Tobio never asks? 

He thinks about it, about bringing up the gallery, the way Kei seemed to be enjoying himself by the end of it, laughing with Alisa. She'd even made Tobio promise to go get dinner next month if he could make it to Osaka, only because Kei _did_ owe her a drink for something or the other. He thinks about saying _isn't she so funny, her younger brother is even funnier._ Or maybe asking _so did you really like the easel the best?_ Or maybe just _did you have fun tonight?_

_Did you have fun tonight?_ It sounds like the stupidest thing in the world to ask, so he doesn't ask it, and doesn't ask anything else. They're not alone, anyway. He doesn't want to put their driver through the pain of listening to them try to have a conversation. 

But then, somewhere far enough outside the city that the only thing around them is a never-ending swathe of woods, Kei leans his head on the window, and clears his throat. 

'How long have you known her?' he asks. 'Alisa Haiba?' 

'Most of my life,' Tobio says. 'She was at Miwa's middle school. They've been best friends since. She wanted to come to the wedding, but—'

'And you really pick favourites in her paintings based on red and blue?' 

Something about his tone rankles. Tobio wants to answer _and what if I do,_ remembers they're not alone, and clears his throat. 'I did tell you I'm only good at looking at art. She doesn't mind.' 

'Right.' Kei seems to have remembered too, brings whatever snuck into his voice back down a notch. 'No, of course she doesn't mind.' 

But the damage is done, the first wrong thing said between them. Tobio can't stop thinking about it the rest of the way home, as they step out in the driveway and towards the mansion, when they wipe their shoes and make their way up the stairs. _And you really pick favourites in her paintings based on red and blue? No, of course she doesn't mind._

Tobio doesn't know what stings more, that hint of sarcasm in Kei's voice, or the fact that he's both wrong and right. _Of course she doesn't mind,_ why, because it's him, Kageyama Tobio? Did Alisa really know when she was twelve that Miwa was a useful friend to make? Did Hinata know when he was fifteen that Tobio was a useful friend to make? If he did, he never showed it. Still doesn't. 

But— does Tobio get to shake off his name like that, when Kei never did, could only get rid of it by changing it? Can he blame Kei for comparing?

He doesn't know. What he does know is that the longer he spends trying to figure out what it meant, the worse it's going to be, so he might as well bite the bullet and open his mouth. 

They're on either side of the partition. Tobio can see Kei's form moving to undress, and it's the first time he's getting to see it. It's addictive, the shadow-show of him pulling at his scarf and laying it out on the bed, the way his elbows move as he undoes his buttons. The cold tension of their breathing. 

'Alisa didn't talk to anyone else as much as she talked to you tonight,' Tobio tries, then pulls a face, because he can hear how it sounds, and it doesn't sound good. 

And it isn't. Through the green glass, Kei stops moving, looks up. 

'Well, I assure you I didn't waste her time,' he says after a long pause. Cold. 'I have two fine arts degrees.' And Tobio would almost agree with the sarcasm if he couldn't hear the _unlike you_ in there, and that— 

'Sorry,' he says, colder, too. 'I didn't mean to embarrass you back there, if that's what you're getting at.' 

He feels stupid now, as stupid as he did on the day of the wedding, thinking back to how he'd dreamt up all the new sweet things he could do and show and say. Stupid now, thinking to just a few hours earlier, lost in his own fantasy of how good they'd look to the outside world. Tobio and his husband, Kei and his husband, tall and stately and with all the right things to say. Yes, he feels stupid now, comparing it to a first date when it was nothing but an ordeal. Awkward at best, revealing at worst. Revealing of how different they are, how different their lives have been despite how parallel they run, this jade between them, mocking, calling. Nothing else in common between them, nothing to talk about.

Stupid, still, because the thrill is back, colder than ever— because at least they're _talking_ , even if it’s about nothing. 

'Far be it from me to insinuate that,' Kei replies. His voice is now ice; he might as well add _your highness._ 'Though I have to laugh. I have two degrees and I still had to— never mind.' He snorts, and Tobio sees his silhouette— dip. 'I suppose you don't have anything you love enough to get two degrees in it?' 

'Because a degree is the most important title in the world?' Tobio shoots back before he can stop himself. Doesn't have to say _you wouldn't be here then, would you,_ for Kei to hear it, for his back to straighten up again, glacial. Angry. So is Tobio. 'Well, I don't have a degree, you'll have to forgive me. But I do have something I do as well as you paint.' _Not that you've shown me._

'And what would that be?' Despite everything, he does sound curious. 

Tobio almost doesn't want to answer, but— they're talking. This is their first real conversation. Kei is his _husband,_ and no matter how many times Tobio says that sentence to himself, it doesn't stop being new. 

'Judo,' he answers, quietly. 'I'm a judoka. You could've known that earlier if you had asked.' 

For a long time, Kei doesn't say anything. Is he embarrassed? Sorry? Even angrier than before? 

Tobio doesn't let him decide. Speaks up again. 'I could show you sometime, if _you_ won't be bored to death.' Turns away from the accusing green of the partition, heart thudding. Takes his own shirt off and brings it down on the bed for something to do. 

Then: 'Yes, sure,' Kei replies. Defiant. Freezing. 'I'd love to see.' 

September suddenly becomes the longest month of Tobio's life. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Proserpine (1874), Dante Gabriel Rossetti.](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/Dante_Gabriel_Rossetti_-_Proserpine_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg)

September becomes the longest month of Kei's life. He doesn't know it's happening until it's happened already, when he's waking up the day after the exhibit and the first thing on his mind isn't _here I am again,_ but the memory of— the cotton-swish of Tobio whipping his shirt onto the bed after they'd said their twisted version of _goodnight_ to each other, after the horrific disaster that was that conversation.

The sheer memory of it makes the centres of his palms sting. Not the conversation. The shirt. The way Tobio had been so motionless beyond the jade of the partition until suddenly he hadn't. The shirt wasn't an act of violence. It was an afterthought, an _oh, I was doing something before my husband interrupted me to talk about his two art degrees._ Still, it was louder than anything else, loud enough to still be playing in Kei's ears the next morning. The arc of it, the perpetual motion of it, smoky and vague. The shade of it, a nightmarish green.

Kei breathes out, blinks wearily at the ceiling. Doesn't need to turn his head to check if Tobio's still in the room; knows he's long gone. 

♛   


Akiteru calls him a few days later, which isn't a surprise. Kei knew his civility at the exhibit would be taken as an opening to communicate again, a calculated— albeit inevitable— risk. It's the first time he's called since Kei left, but he makes it sound like it isn't, like they spoke just the other day about what they were making for dinner in their respective kitchens, making plans to bake together across time zones like back when Kei was abroad.  


'How's the Rosetti pastiche?' His voice sounds distant. He's probably in a car, having chosen this moment to call Kei so that he has an excuse to hang up if the conversation doesn't go his way. _Well, I'm almost at the office, I'll call you later, then._ 'Is _Proserpine_ liking the new studio?' 

'I wouldn't know,' Kei answers, though he could in three minutes if he wanted. 'She hasn't seen it yet. Still in the shelves.' 

'You must be working on something else then, to be so invisible around the house.' 

'And I suppose my sister-in-law is the one who filled you in on my daily whereabouts?' He doesn't care how snappy it sounds, because Akiteru deserves every inch of it, and more. 'Should I start wearing a wire to make it easier for you?' 

Akiteru says nothing, not even a quiet, disappointed _Kei._ Silence crackles on the line for an entire minute, Kei glaring down at his own hand, trying to will away the knot in his stomach that always accompanies fighting with his brother, and wishing, more than anything, that their useless fucking Saturday exhibit opening had never happened. That he'd never discovered— all these _years_ later— what it's like to be heard. That he hadn't seen that smile on Alisa's face, the one that said _I'm sorry I couldn't do this earlier._ Because at the end of the day, whom can Kei blame? Can he blame her— when she so clearly loved speaking to him last night, when she couldn't hide the regret from her tone that she could only now hold this kind of conversation in all freedom? Can he blame Tobio for being born into a family that gave him this access— can he really, when his own family doesn't want for a single thing, when the power that was exchanged is _theirs?_

_Because a degree is the most important title in the world?_ Whom can he blame for it— that despite his privilege and his education, his value in the world— the one _he_ wants to live in— amounts, finally, to nothing? His family, for having brought him here? Himself, for being ungrateful, so ungrateful that he snapped at the man who readily married him to— 

'Four more months,' Akiteru says, then. Clearer now, lower. He's alone. 'That was the deal. Now you can hate us all you want— and I know you do, and I'm sorry, I am— but the Kei I know is responsible enough to live those four months with dignity.' 

_Don't make us look bad,_ he's saying, because after all, Kei's not allowed to stop being a Tsukishima. And not allowed to stop being a Kageyama either. The absurdity of his situation sinks into him all over again, as if he had ever forgotten it. 

He cuts the line without saying goodbye, and Akiteru doesn't call again.

♛   


It sticks in his head, strange, sinister subtitle to the image of Tobio's shirt coming down on the bed. _With dignity._  


To his credit, Akiteru was right— Kei's been in the studio more often than not, half his time divided between his canvases and the greenhouses, where he's somehow unwittingly signed up to be delegated gardening duties by Sugawara. He doesn't mind— the only thing he loves more than tending to plants is tending to his paints, and the latter hasn't been coming easy. Half his time is given to his canvases but they're scattered around the studio, a perfect parody of the tortured artist, the kind he swore never to be, having spent enough time in Bokuto's earthquake aftermath of a workspace and sick of the glorified mess of it all. 

No, Kei's always been neat, organised, always had a clear idea of what he wants and doesn't want to paint, but his brain refuses to cooperate, still cold-shocked from its new environment, with nothing of the old to keep it grounded. He caves only once to Hitoka and Tadashi's demands to meet up, because the act of getting into a car and driving himself to town, while second to the embarrassment he would've felt at asking to be _driven,_ still feels so wrong and shameful that he vows never to do it again. 

Akaashi calls him out on it, though Kei knows he's only annoyed at being turned down for coffee despite being back in the country after six whole months. 

'You do realise that you don't need their permission to resume your life?' he asks, a little sharp, over the phone. Kei sighs as he settles into a crouch before the rack, staring at the rough edges of the canvas, the keys, the slightest layer of dust on the wood of the shelf. 'They're not your wardens. You've only stepped out of that estate twice in as many months. You're going to go insane.'

'I'm unveiling _Proserpine_ ,' Kei says, in lieu of an answer. 'I think I might be able to finish working on her by January if I really get down to it.' 

Silence, then Akaashi's _fine, you brat_ sigh. 'Can I come over for tea, then? I'm well-mannered. I'll be good.'

'I can't think of a single thing that would be worse.' 

'Worse than me coming over for tea?'

‘Worse than you being good.’ Kei makes up his mind, sets the phone on speaker before putting it away and rolling up his sleeves. Hooks his fingertips carefully behind the frame, and lifts it out of its slim enclave. ‘I already deal with enough _good_ here.’

‘Bad boy politicians not cutting it for you?’

Kei thinks back to Tobio’s smoothie bowl, snorts, but Akaashi probably misses it; he’s moved to the centre of the studio with the canvas now, setting it carefully on the easel, looking it over. Most of the darkness he’d already filled in before getting here; the borders are opaque and decided, missing detail but not principle. There’s no sonnet-scroll yet in the upper right corner, no incense in the lower left, but _she_ is present already: the dark parted hair, the midnight gaze, the rich viridian of her silks. Her hands clutching the fruit, the exposed jewels of its insides the most vibrant thing on the canvas apart from her unhappy lips. He thinks back to what Akiteru asked earlier, _is she liking the new studio?_ And— it does feel strange to unveil her here, the same way it’s always felt strange to work on a painting across countries, hauling a canvas home for the holidays because he couldn’t bear to part with it for that long— it feels strange like that. Again, like he’s moved countries somehow, bringing something he was working on in another world, a world called _before,_ and opening it back up here, now.

‘He’s no more a bad boy than I’m a katana-swinging gangster,’ he replies, finally. ‘Though try telling his friend Hinata that. He tries to bore holes in my shirt every time we cross. Checking for tattoos.’

'A _tattoo,_ the scandal,' Akaashi gasps in English, exaggerated RP. Despite himself, Kei laughs, and hates Akaashi for making him laugh. 'Oh, whatever will we do when he finds it? A _tattoo._ ' 

'Fine, you win,' Kei says. 'I'll come see you before the end of the month.'

'Good. Make it a birthday outing. You're not turning twenty-six on the set of _Keeping Up with the Kageyamas.'_

'Hey, don't talk shit about my mansion. My husband built it with his bare hands.' 

‘Well, bring him along too, then. I'd love to lock good boy horns with him.’

♛

_Be careful what you wish for_ has never rung so true. In the trial of God that the month of September is turning out to be for Kei, he manages to hammer in one of the coffin nails himself, and also breaks his thumb in the process.

It doesn’t end up being a birthday outing after all. Instead, that night itself, at dinner, Tobio’s mother mentions that a friend of hers has opened up a new restaurant in _that noisy part of Roppongi that you youngsters like,_ to which Miwa replies _that’s all of Roppongi, mom._

It makes Kei have to hide his smile behind a cough, which Tobio misinterprets so wildly that he ends up blurting _well, we could go. I mean—_

Suddenly the entire table is looking at Kei, who realises, not without the hysteria that’s so customary to these family meals, that if anything, he’s the one calling the shots here. Not them. Maybe it hasn’t been them all this while— or maybe it secretly _is_ them, and this is a farce.

‘I would love to,’ he says, because he doesn’t have any other choice. ‘In fact— I have a friend who’s just returned from Italy, he’s been wanting to meet up for a while now. Maybe we could…’

‘Then it’s settled,’ Tobio’s mother says, claps her hand in that sweet, slightly bossy way of hers that reminds Kei of his own mother. ‘I’ll call Naoko up and tell her to get you all a little table at the inauguration. It’s this Friday, Tobio, I’ll have flowers ordered— oh, Kei, dear, you don’t have any allergies, do you?’

He doesn’t. Nor does Akaashi, and nor do Tadashi and Hitoka, who practically invite themselves the moment they hear of it. On the one hand it _would_ have been excessive to go out to dinner with just his husband and his ex, but funnily enough, the only thing more excessive that Kei can come up with is introducing Tobio to his closest friends in one fell swoop, singling him out in front of three strangers. Four, counting Kei.

The week slips by, out of his control. He takes it out on Proserpine, pulling up a stool before her and hunching down on it despite hearing his mother, Akiteru, and three different professors correct his posture in his head. Squints at the fall of the fabric around her shoulders, then leans back to glare at her entirety, considers putting her back in the shelves and starting something new and harmless, like Sugawara’s favourite roses, the pink ones building a jungle of their own in the far corner of the gardens. But he doesn’t. Out of a sense of duty, irony, spite, whichever it is: he doesn’t, because Akiteru’s right— he has four more months, and now, something to do during those four months that has nothing to do with why they are being carved out of his life in the first place. (Duty to irony, then. In Proserpine’s vivid, vacant gaze, the living darkness of her hair, how fair her face is.)

♛

The week slips by, and on Friday, Kei walks into the bathroom that they’ve begun to share now, and it’s his turn to freeze.

It isn’t as if he hasn’t seen every part of Tobio’s face, too. The way his right eyebrow, long and fine, arches minutely higher than his left one, as if someone paranoid enough to look could find perpetual bemusement in his gaze through no fault of anyone’s. The long straight line of his nose, geometrically flawless. His eyes, dark like ink, their colour indistinguishable. The perfection with which Kei has memorised his features doesn’t mean they’re static: instead, the blueprint lets him trace the way they change over the days.

Which is to say, if he can recover enough to say it, that a part of his brain _had_ registered that Tobio sports evening shadows often— but hadn’t concluded, then, that he must do something to get rid of them, and that— of course— he would choose the worst way to do it.

To his credit, Tobio doesn’t start at the sight of Kei anymore, which is good, because the blade he’s holding to his jaw looks sharp enough to slice clean through his jugular at the slightest misstep. Simply, he brings the already-slow motion of his hand to a perfect stop, and after a moment, meets eyes with Kei in the mirror.

Objectively, it should mean nothing, be embarrassing, even. The sight of him shirtless— another thing Kei has unfathomably gotten used to— with that towel that’s always hanging around his neck, its white cotton so ridiculously perfect against the dark gold of his skin, its edges landing right over his ribs, right where Kei usually stops looking. The hair at the nape of his neck damp and curled, his fringe damp too, sticky-looking, parted clumsily. The wet white swipe of foam across his jaw and down his arched neck should be embarrassing at worst, ordinary at best. They’ve shared this space countless times now; that first accidental encounter enough for them to relax this stupid boundary, and nothing new about Kei working wax through his hair while Tobio puts on that industrial-looking hand cream of his.

Nothing new about this, Kei thinks to himself, even as he stays frozen in the doorway while Tobio holds his grip. He doesn’t look like he’s going to stop— and of course he wouldn’t, he’s in the middle of something, damn it. He’s in the middle of something, that’s all, and Kei is here to fix his hair, which is a mess of static after he put his turtleneck on, and then he can leave. So he clears his throat and averts his eyes, and makes his way over to his section of the counter. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Tobio resume.

Kei leans forward and checks his hair in the mirror with an interest that would suggest he’s just dyed it blue. Runs his fingers through it, doesn’t look at Tobio, reaches for his brush to sweep it off his forehead, doesn’t look at Tobio, tucks it behind his ears. Tobio is working carefully over the curve of his chin, lower lip pulled into his mouth. He’s slow and careful, and Kei’s mind slows it further, so that he doesn’t miss anything: the foam giving way to the steely descent of the blade. Every thread of skin revealed down the pavonine line of his throat. How there’s no hesitation in a single stroke of it, not like Kei two weeks ago, willing his fingers not to shake as he did his eyes.

No, of course it doesn’t matter to Tobio that Kei’s looking openly; he’s in the middle of something, and then he’s done. Kei almost starts as he twists the water on, watches as he dries his face off with the towel. The little twist of his mouth as he checks for errors, concentrated, critical. And then, impossibly: his eyes meeting Kei’s once more before he looks away again, so fast that Kei can’t even parse the brief question he saw in them. Which is good, because whatever it was, he doesn’t have an answer for it. So he finds the presence of mind to go back to tinkering around with one of the products on his shelf while Tobio rubs on his aftershave, hands working over his cheeks, jawline, neck, newly bare throat working as he swallows.

Then, just as slowly— or quickly— as it happened, Tobio leaves. Kei waits until he hears the door of the room click shut, too, before exhaling.

The lights of the bathroom are suddenly too bright. He turns the overhead one off, so that it’s only him under the dim one over the mirror, strange and shameful in the half-gold dark. His hair isn’t the least bit fixed, its pale edges frayed like filaments around the curve of his head. Now the mortification, as he processes the three minutes of unadulterated observations he just made without a single care for decorum. His windpipe, stupidly tense, that sting back in his palms. Tobio’s shirt arcing down with dignity.

With dignity, Kei reaches for the aftershave, fits his fingers around the cold green glass of it. Twists the cap off and nearly drops it, wincing as it clatters on the countertop like one last warning. He doesn’t take it; takes the bottle to his nose instead; takes in a slow, deep breath. Leans his forehead on his hand, and closes his eyes, swallows.

♛

Akaashi Keiji is easy to forget— impossible to retain in memory. He’s always slipped in and out of Kei’s life, so elusive as to convince Kei, every time, that it will be the last time they see each other. And yet, somehow, always a silky, humming presence in his everyday, their relationship physically distant— London to Tokyo, Paris to Seoul, bed to couch— but filled with conversation, serene and complicit. The sex, too, serene. Complicit. And all-consuming, constrained as they always were by time.

He blames that constraint for the way his heart leaps into his throat when he sees Akaashi again. It’s perfectly timed— he and Tobio have just finished their round of introductions and small talk, already in tandem even though it’s only the second time, and Kei’s just about to resign himself to having to sit at their table in silence and with nothing but the memory of the aftershave still in his senses— when he spots Akaashi, that head of perfectly coiled curls that he’d be able to tell apart in a crowd much larger than this one. And before he knows it, his breath is hitching, and Akaashi is in front of them. Poised, graceful, quiet. Serene.

Kei doesn’t feel serene. For a moment, his heart is in his throat, a dozen responses fighting inside his mind. Seeing Akaashi has always meant pulling him in by the waist and pressing their lips together without ceremony, and never has he acted against that impulse. This is the first time— for a second, it feels strange and terrifying, like Kei is going to lose him. But just as quickly, the relief of seeing him again washes over, and Kei discovers, in the absence of that action he’s so used to, just how fond he is of Akaashi— unconditionally. He sees it in Akaashi’s eyes too, the split second of incomprehension, before it’s wiped off by a smile, sheepish but genuinely glad.

Just as quickly, Kei’s glad too. Holds out a hand for Akaashi to take, tightens his fingers around familiar, warm ones, before letting go— only Akaashi keeps holding on, makes a show of inspecting Kei’s ring before looking up with an eyebrow raised in approval. Kei laughs out loud; doesn’t even feel chastised turning back to Tobio, who’s watching with barely contained interest; only childishly giddy, like he’s introducing a friend from school to a friend from university and can’t believe they’re in the same room.

‘This is Akaashi Keiji,’ he says, and oh, no, his voice sounds— as light as he feels. ‘Akaashi, meet—’

‘Kageyama Tobio.’ He— so that’s what he looks like when he smiles. ‘Pleased to meet you, Akaashi-san.’

‘Please, drop the _san_ ,’ Akaashi says easily. ‘I’ve put up with your husband for long enough to feel a sense of comradeship with you, Kageyama-san.’

‘Then I’ll have to ask you to call me Tobio,’ Tobio replies. He isn’t a smooth talker. Kei can hear the way he’s weighing his words, and it makes him feel— something that he can’t tell apart from the rest of the mess in his head right now, so he lets it go, only puzzled that it isn’t negative. ‘Please, let’s sit.’

Kei only registers the joke made at his expense by the time they’re already settled, and by then it’s too late to react to it, though he vows to give Akaashi a piece of his mind later. For now, he shoots off a text to Tadashi and Hitoka to hurry them up, and pockets his phone only to find that Tobio and Akaashi are actually engaged in some variant of a conversation. Akaashi’s apparently done his homework, knows exactly which questions to politely ask about the restaurant, and Tobio, for all that Miwa is the social one between them two, seems to know more than enough about the place and its owners to opine. Kei finds himself pushed to the sidelines for those four minutes of small talk, the surreality of it only sinking deeper when the others finally arrive, Tadashi choosing to greet him with a loud and enthusiastic wave, uncaring as always of where they are.

It’s hilarious— he was worried, if briefly, about Tobio being singled out in his group. Instead, between Akaashi and Hitoka fervently trading life updates from architect to designer and Tadashi’s earnest, if slightly anxious, attempt to get to know Tobio’s favourite item off the menu, Kei can hardly get a word in edgewise, can only stare at them all in the flickering candlelight, all sweet and pretty and here, somehow. At least Tobio seems just as bewildered by the ease of it all— another boundary between them, somehow circumvented without struggle.

But no sooner does Kei think that, that trouble arrives. Akaashi, clearly tired of being good, looks up from the wine he’s pouring and says, ‘May I ask you something indiscreet, Tobio?’

A pause where the din of the restaurant grows muffled, suffocating. Kei knows Akaashi would never compromise him, but there is that dangerous little quirk to his mouth that reminds him that Akaashi was the only one to witness the full extent of Kei’s despair over the marriage, and consequently the only one to have a real reason to dislike Tobio, if only for what he represents. And suddenly, the thought of Akaashi disliking Tobio—

‘Yes,’ Tobio replies, after the pause, the syllable full of nerves.

‘May I see the ring?’

Kei exhales, deliberately slow, trying not to let it shake his chest. Tadashi’s pretending to be busy on his phone, thank God, but Hitoka catches it, and he revels in not being the only one who felt, for a second, like he was about to die. Only then does he dare to sneak a glance at Tobio.

He isn’t smiling, but there’s no pique on his face either— simply something clear and full of understanding. Wordlessly, he holds his hand out across the table, Kei moving a glass out of the way for him, and lets Akaashi bring one of the candles close to look at the ring, so close that it must be just on this side of discomfort. He must know, he must; and still he holds it up over the stone of the ring, and Kei, despite himself, stares at how the flame dances on its cut.

The table says nothing. Tadashi’s lowered the phone. Hitoka, too, is watching, for once. Kei wants— acutely— to be anywhere other than here, where he can read neither Akaashi’s eyes nor Tobio’s, can’t even begin to fathom what this exchange means to either of them. What, if anything, it’s supposed to mean to him, when he still has Tobio’s aftershave on the insides of his wrists and the memory of the last time he saw Akaashi on his mind. (The last time, then, that he was touched by anyone.)

The moment tiptoes past, one step a century. Just as Kei thinks Tobio’s finally going to curl his hand away from the horrid flickering flame, Akaashi sighs, mock-dramatic, and looks up with a sincere smile. Puts the candle down.

‘It’s beautiful,’ he declares. ‘Thank you for indulging my discourtesy.’

And maybe it’s that. Maybe it’s because the last time Kei was touched by Akaashi— by anyone— was so long ago; maybe it’s because seeing his friends, all of them at once, has mellowed him in that quick way it always does. Maybe it’s something else entirely, something he hasn’t begun to process yet. Whatever it is, he wants to think it comes from outside him: the impulse, faint at first then absolute and aching, to reach out under the table and take Tobio’s hand. Only to check if it’s hot, only to remedy that; Kei’s fingers are always cold. Only to— demarcate himself from the terrifying, inquisitive strangers surrounding them.

He fights it with all his might; the impulse. Clenches his jaw and his fist and his _toes_ , damn it, and leans forward. ‘Akaashi always complains that I don’t send him enough pictures.’

‘Oh, you send me pictures all right. Just—’

‘Stop. The trainwreck potential of that sentence is increasing exponentially by the second.’

That does it, as Kei hoped he would; Akaashi takes the cue to whip his phone out and make a show of looking for embarrassing pictures of Kei from college, which, while still ridiculous, is less inappropriate than what happened just before. If Tobio senses the social scrambling of it all, he says nothing— he’s busy trying to come up with a fitting reaction to whatever monstrosity Akaashi will surely unearth from his camera roll. _Here, meet your husband. He has two art degrees. Yes, that’s a traffic cone on his head._

Kei’s own phone buzzes; a text from Tadashi. _Say the word and I’ll fake a burst appendix. Hospital won’t be as awkward._

He blinks down at it, then up across the table at Tadashi, who winks. Kei— relaxes, snorts, rolls his eyes. Maybe next time— next time— he can ask Tobio to bring Hinata.

♛

On their way to the car— they’ve driven themselves tonight— he spots, under the harsh white of a streetlamp, a pink stain on Tobio’s last knuckle. It’s nothing, he knows. Wax. Spilled, stiffened, scraped off: nothing.

Still he can’t take his eyes off it all through the drive back. Off Tobio’s practiced hands on the wheel, sleeves rolled up to his elbows now.

‘Did you like the salmon?’ Tobio asks the midnight highway. How long did he hesitate before asking that? _Did you like the salmon?_

‘I did,’ Kei replies. The stain is no longer visible, but the metal that summoned it is. ‘Did you?’

♛

His birthday falls on the last Sunday of the month, and miracle of miracles, no one makes a big deal out of it. Yes, he wakes up to a dozen different texts, and takes three phone calls: his mother’s out of fear, Akiteru’s out of pity, and his father’s because he knows what time it is in Berlin, and it makes his heart hurt a little. But they talk as easily as always, and by the time Kei hears the the rest of the house waking up in a symphony of vacuum cleaners and the jazz Tobio’s father likes to put on in the living room, he has decided that the day doesn’t have to be anything out of the ordinary. Ushers his father off to bed, then sits up in his own, and stretches. It isn’t raining.

It is, in fact, so perfectly sunny outside that for a second he thinks he’s hallucinating. It’s as if all of September had never happened; he’s convinced that if he steps outside the land won’t give under his feet, will have dried up just enough for him to walk without worrying. He’s almost stumbling over himself to shower and change, grab his weapons of choice— sketchbook, pencils, earphones— and when he crosses Shimizu in the hallway, he greets her out loud. If she finds it strange, she says nothing, only smiles at him, nods, and continues her merry way with her stack of files destined for the study. Luckily no one’s in the living room, so he can bound past it to the kitchen— also empty— and out the back door to the patio, the path, and then the greenhouses.

Sugawara is more than used to Kei’s trespassing now, and to his credit, Kei always makes himself as small as possible, fitting himself into the slightest corner of the greenhouse, on a rickety wooden chair that previously served only an aesthetic purpose and doesn’t take kindly to his weight. Today’s no different— he wants to make good on his promise to send sketches to his father in the post, and he won’t have the time for it come next week, because Akaashi’s brief stays in town also entail a lot of viewings, debates, and the inevitable wheedling for Kei to finally make a call about his career, which always takes up at least three brunch dates. No, today is the best time to get started on drawing vines and leaves, and maybe later he could break out the watercolours.

‘You can connect it to my speaker,’ Sugawara says, as always, when Kei brings out his phone and unwinds the cord around it. ‘How about some piano today? The begonias could use it.’

‘We should just get a gramophone put in here,’ Kei jokes, then snorts as Sugawara pretends to consider it. ‘Well, it _would_ be charming.’

The greenhouse is never as awake as it is under the sun; to know otherwise is counterintuitive. There’s something entirely different about how the plants breathe in all that airy light, like they know their colours can touch the surface now instead of curling in wait for the rain to recede. Kei wants to keep them this way forever, but he can’t, so he does the next best thing and flattens them down into so many strokes in the pages of his sketchbook. Maybe he can even convince Sugawara to let him have one of the flowers to press dry; even opens his mouth to ask when he sees him shoulder through the door with a pot in tow, then thinks better of it.

‘Those are?’

‘Sweet peas,’ Sugawara grunts. ‘Or, well, they will be when I sow them this week. Gotta get them nice and germinated before grounding them for the winter. Little Hana’s coming to visit on Wednesday, I’m gonna let her do it.’

 _Little Hana_ might be little, but that does not make her a less formidable opponent. Kei groans internally at the prospect of having to help her fill colouring pages on her tablet again, but it isn’t without— well, a certain fondness. Three years of age and exactly two meetings might be too early to tell, but she does have a different taste in colour palettes than the rest of her contemporaries; she might make an avant-garde toddler yet.

He brings it up at dinner, which marks a number of firsts, the most important one being Kei sparking a conversation of his own volition at the table. It’s a testament to his dangerously peaceful mood that he only hesitates for a second before talking, disguising the slighest of nervousness in the motion of spooning vegetables onto his plate. It helps that Tobio is away at— well, Kei wouldn’t know, but he isn’t here, and that makes it easier somehow. The fact that Tobio is the only one who hasn’t wished him yet is the least of Kei’s worries; he’s glad he got to avoid it, in fact.

‘Sugawara-san told me that we have a little visitor on Wednesday,’ he says, focusing on getting a stray string bean away from the edge of his plate. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Tobio’s mother look up from her rice, then quickly at her husband, who continues eating. Miwa’s fingers have stopped flying over the screen of her phone. ‘I was thinking I could— show her the studio, maybe. She might like the paints.’

Now that he’s said it, it hangs ridiculous and blithe in the air. All of their polite levity these past two months is thrown in sharp relief against one genuine, halting proposition of his, and he feels a hundred different things at once, embarrassment the least of them. Maybe he’s overstepped— maybe the façade, pleasant though it was, was mandatory. How would he know? When no one from _his_ family has visited a single time, when no one has told him how to act? Could this not have been prevented— Kei, feeling stupid the moment he is sincere, as if it’s a crime?

Whose fault is it? Whom can he blame?

He’s not yet managed to gather the courage to look up from his plate and face the silence— which is surely a reprimand, or shock, at best— when a hand folds over his. He stares blankly at the fine, barely-there wrinkles on the skin, the short, clean nails.

He looks up. Kageyama Mayumi is smiling at him, warm and pleased, and Kei feels something tighten in his chest. Beside her, Kageyama Hiroshi has put his chopsticks down, is taking a long drink of water, but Kei can see his lips quirk too.

‘I think she would love that,’ his mother-in-law whispers, finally. ‘She asks her parents for you all the time.’

‘Mom, let go of his hand, you’re freaking him out,’ Miwa sighs. ‘Also, Kei, you can say goodbye to your studio. She’s a hands-on learner, that one.’

♛

There is something to be said about the speed at which it falls apart before it even begin to come together: at seven in the evening Kei is trading hesitant jokes with his father-in-law over tea at the empty table, and at nine, as he makes his daily pilgrimage upstairs to sneak into his studio and work— maybe even past midnight for once— he stops short in the hallway, and his mind starts to go blank.

Parked next to the door, out of place and glinting discreet in the light of the sconces, is a tea cart. A single, thin candle illuminates— Kei frowns harder— a plate covered with a steel dome, and next to it, two French presses, still steaming: one filled with coffee, the other with milk. A porcelain cup, a silver fork. And no explanation.

On feet lined with lead, Kei walks closer to the cart, ears ringing with— apprehension. There was nothing special about any of the meals today; someone from his family clearly informed everyone here that he doesn’t like to make a big deal out of his birthday. So maybe it’s just— a well-meaning generic gesture, an expensive pastry brought over from some fancy bakery in Tokyo, laid quietly waiting here so that he doesn’t have to say thanks to everyone. Maybe the milk is an intelligent guess, too. Maybe Miwa paid attention to his habits well past the first week, that’s how they know. It must be them—

Kei lifts the dome, puts it aside. On the perfect plate lies a perfect miniature cake. He takes a moment to look at it without a single other thought in his head. The visible crumb, the soft white mountains of cream, deliberately messy. The strawberries. The ones in half-slices embedded into the cake as they’re supposed to, and the ones lying around it, red, triangular, tart.

A heavy pulse builds at the base of Kei’s head, creeping up until he can feel it in his ears. By the time it reaches his temples he’s realised that he’s been standing in the hallway staring down at it for a full minute, and gathers himself enough to fish out the studio keys, unlock it, and push the cart inside. Its wheels roll soundlessly on the carpet of the hallway, then rattle against the wooden floor of the studio before he pulls it to a stop next to the easel he was last working by, the canvas posed on it still blank. Kei, as he sits heavily on the stool, still looking at the cake, observes— if dully— how beautiful the setup is. To his taste, to a fault.

No, there is nothing generic about this; and so, it cannot have come from anyone else. Kei can only think of one person in this immense, rainy house who would take the trouble to call his brother up and ask for birthday traditions, however mundane— and more than that, only one person Akiteru would deign to reveal them to. Kei can almost hear the conversation, see the text, whatever— _I always get him strawberry shortcake, and a nice cup of coffee, milk, no sugar. He likes it after dinner when there’s nothing left to do with his day but enjoy it._

Along with the pulsing builds a singular need, juvenile and crucial: to take the cake and smash it against the blank canvas in front of him, spread its contents on the white until juice is rolling down sticky and red, irreparably crushed.

Kei resists it with dignity. With dignity, he stays in the studio under the square white light, keeping the canvas clean of both food and charcoal, trying to let his brain fill with a buzz, a hum, a drone— anything but thought, the many-knifed assault of which has changed the pulsing to a sharp, stabbing pain. So much so that he barely registers the sound of one of the cars pulling up in the driveway, and only realises it when he hears the front door of the house slam shut.

He barely registers himself moving, either. One second he’s sitting under the square white light, the next he’s striding to the door, washing the studio in darkness, locking it behind him even as his hands tremble. His legs tremble on the way downstairs but they get him there: he throws the door to the bedroom open seconds after he sees Tobio click it closed.

Kei’s out of breath. Rather, his lungs seem to have tightened so much that they can’t take in any of the air of the room. He can’t do anything about it, so he stands there as the door swings shut behind him, chest heaving, lips tingling, stars in his vision from the rush of— Tobio turns around, already down half the buttons on his shirt, lips parted in open surprise. Hands frozen mid-manœuvre, fingers curled over black silk.

It’s too much. Everything is too much— it’s just too fucking much, it’s too much. Tobio’s bewildered eyes, the cake and coffee untouched in his studio, Mayumi’s hand on his own, Sugawara’s sweet peas. It’s too much, and he can’t call anyone else up about this— can’t bring himself to— here in this immense rainy house there is only one person he can yell himself hoarse at, and God help him, he’s going to do it.

‘Who do you think you are?’ he hisses, recoils, if mentally, at the sound of his own voice. ‘Who do you all think you are?’ No, it wouldn’t do to lump him in with his cordial family; Tobio’s a different animal with his _do you want to have breakfast with me_ and the way he let that stupid fucking candle drip fire onto his hand just to— no, he is above and beyond, and the sight of him is too much. ‘No— no, you. Who do _you_ think you are? Trying to make me happy? Trying to be my friend?’

Tobio slowly lowers his hands, takes a step forward. He doesn’t look scared— if he did Kei really would turn tail and leave, sleep in the gardens— he looks—

‘I didn’t eat it, if you’re wondering,’ Kei says, and Tobio’s jaw clenches. ‘So terribly sorry to whoever had to run that errand for you, I hope you’ll pass on my apologies. If you knew anything about me, you’d have known that it was useless.’

Tobio stares.

‘Because it’s not the same,’ he continues. Oh, God, is that a catch in his voice? ‘It will never be the same. This will never be home— let me say that again for you. This will _never_ be home, and no matter how nice all of you are, you will never be my family. You will never—’ And why isn’t he fighting back? Why does he keep looking with that silent press of his lips? It makes Kei feel hostile and witless, every bit the delegate of the stereotypes people make up about him, drives in the hypocrisy of it that has been piercing his organs from the day he found out he was to be married, put at the charity of a family cleaner than his. ‘Why won’t you _say_ something, damn it?!’

Then: Tobio’s eyes flash.

‘What do you want me to say?’ he asks lowly. ‘Have you let me say a single word without twisting it against me? I can’t even ask you what music you like without you thinking it’s an attack on your pride!’ He steps forward; Kei steps back. He’s close enough to the door for the handle to dig in at the base of his spine. ‘And now I can’t even be quiet without you hating me for it— so tell me, what do you want from me? What am I supposed to do for you?’

There it is. Kei’s stomach twists, and he barely grinds out his reply. ‘You’re supposed to _stop trying_. You’re supposed to— stop asking—’ 

‘Then will you talk?’ Tobio is close enough now that Kei can smell him, the addictive, velvet green, sage-smoke scent of him. His hair is so dark. His eyes are— his voice is so dark. ‘Have you ever talked to me? We could’ve talked about everything. We could’ve handled this like partners. Not friends. Partners.’ _What’s his is yours._ ‘But did you talk? Did you tell me you had someone else in your life before? That you don’t like soup for breakfast? That it stresses you out when my father takes calls at the dinner table?

‘No,’ he says, a whisper now, boreal and bitter. ‘No, I had to figure it all out myself. And believe it or not, I get tired of that. So I have to ask. And you still— don’t— fucking— talk.’

‘Oh, you want me to talk?’ Kei breathes. The scent is hitting the back of his throat now, climbing up through there to his head, searing, exquisite. He steps towards it, away from the cold handle of the door, the satisfaction of seeing Tobio’s gaze falter acidic for a moment before it goes ablaze. Before that gaze lowers to his lips for one heartbeat, then rises back up with new weight. Before Kei’s own regard breaks free of his rage and catches sight of Tobio’s— ‘You want me to talk?’ Says it again to have something to say, to keep the hourglass on his side; _it’s still my turn._ ‘You—’

‘Yes,’ Tobio grits out, oh, God, Kei can feel his every exhale on his own lips. He swallows, the pulsing-buzzing-stabbing back, ten times worse, larger than him, his heart pure murder in his chest. ‘Yes, Kei, I want you to—’

Kei doesn’t kiss him. He charges, strikes, takes. Takes Tobio’s silk shirt in the grip of his fists, takes Tobio’s ungodly soft lips between his teeth, takes his breath out of his throat. And Tobio, too, takes: he takes his husband into his arms, one hand going into Kei’s hair and curling so tight that it feels like it’s always been there. Walking Kei right back into the door and pressing him up against it, one hand pinning Kei’s wrist to the wood, and then ripping his mouth away to lean back, eyes wide and bright, lips red.

‘That’s not talking,’ he gasps, but in the same breath he frees his fingers from Kei’s hair, brings them around to press at his jaw, thumb on his cheekbone, like he’s sizing Kei up for a blow. The world holds still for a minute, the rush of it looming over Kei in a wave twice the height of him; all he can think is _hit me hit me hit me._ Doesn’t want to think anymore— makes a hungry sound in the back of his throat that has Tobio surging forward again, Kei twisting his wrist free to pull at his hair now, pulling like he wants to rip it straight from his head, using the other hand to push away from the door so that he can curl better over Tobio. They sway in place for a moment, lips locked, then Tobio pushes back. And pulls back. Steps back. Kei’s glasses are askew; his breath is long gone. His blood is thrumming. His mind has gone dark.

‘I—’ Tobio sounds hoarse. He looks like a mess, flushed down to the open triangle of his shirt. A twinge hooks through Kei, down to his toes. ‘I’m—’

‘I’m going to take a bath,’ Kei says, voice sounding muted to himself through the thudding of his heart. Stupid, surreal, necessary. Does the job; Tobio relaxes. ‘I’m—’ _Sorry about the cake. Sorry for kissing you. I’m not sorry._ ‘Do you need anything from—’

‘No,’ Tobio replies, too quick. ‘No. I’ve had a long day.’ Kei can’t help it; huffs a laugh, harsh and brief. ‘I’m just— going to—’

‘Yeah.’ Kei straightens up, fixes his glasses. Looks at the floor. ‘All right.’

♛

The lights are off by the time he comes back out. Every single one of them. He has to feel his way around the pitch-darkness until he finds his bed, crawls onto it, then under the covers.

His head has yet to stop spinning.

He thinks about it, about whispering _goodnight_ into the dark. Then, as always, thinks better, and closes his eyes.


	5. Chapter 5

Tobio lets go once the strain in his hamstring starts to scream. Falls backwards onto the mat and pants, blinking up at the rafters the architect— a friend of his father’s— thought would be one of the essential Japanese elements to keep intact in the construction of the house. They still throw him for a loop every time he's stretching, make him feel exposed though he isn't. 

It especially doesn't help today, with the window cracked open and a distinct chill in the air despite it not even being October yet. It might be because of how early Tobio's awake— he's always risen before the sun, but today's the first time he had to turn on all the lights to see around the place, and the dark messed his rhythm up enough that he had to give up on anything serious and resign himself to a morning of stretches and yoga. It's been a while, anyway, and— and well, he's going to tear something if he tries the machines when his head isn't in it. 

Because it isn't. It's so far from everything he can't even imagine how to come back to himself— so deep inside and surrounded by the memory of last night that it might be the only thing he ever remembers of this entire— because in a million little things that sometimes go right, mostly go wrong, it's the most crystal-clear moment he's experienced so far that he could call pure fear. Fear, when he pulled away, that this was it— that this is it. That now, they've really ruined everything, when there was nothing to salvage in the first place. 

And can they, really? Ruin something they haven't made yet? That they'll never make?

Maybe they can— it wouldn't be the first impossible thing they've done this year between the two of them. Maybe this is how it works when something's ruined before it's made. Maybe Tobio'll have to sneak out, like last night, and sleep in the guest room in his own house forever— or until the end of December, when Kei'll pack up and leave the way Tobio promised to let him. _Let him,_ as if that— creature he saw last night, with those eyes, that voice, who kissed him like— as if that's someone he can give permission to. Even if he asked.

Which he never would. He shouldn't.

‘Fuck,’ Tobio whispers. His throat's dry. He stretches out a hand, pats around until he hits the cold steel of his bottle, rolls it over. Closes his eyes and presses the base to them for a second before twisting the lid off and curving up on his elbows to drink. He squints at the strange glint of the bottle, then realises the sun's risen enough to start lining in through the window. Just enough to turn off the largest lights. 

He puts the bottle away, takes care of the lights. Comes back to the centre of his network of mats, adjusts the hem of his T-shirt, and takes a deep breath. If he holds each stretch for a minute, it could be enough for today to do two or three sun salutations, and maybe counting the seconds in his head will drive every other thought out. He doesn't know what to do with a single one of them anyway, hadn't prepared to have to think about something like this. Hadn't even considered it the day he found out Kei'd requested separate beds, had only thought _of course,_ without a shred of hurt or disappointment or even surprise. It was one thing, back then, to expect them to be quiet and good and play their parts— Tobio more than Kei, he knows, now— another to expect them to actually live it. 

If anything, Tobio was surprised that Kei hadn't asked for a different room itself, and still wonders why he didn't. Now more than ever, remembering how impossible— how _impossible_ it was to be in the same space as him last night. So much that the moment Kei edged away from the door and towards the bathroom, face pale except the strange red rims of his eyes that refused to meet Tobio's suddenly— the moment the door closed behind him, Tobio was scrambling for his nightclothes, and all but running from the room. Turning off every light on the way out so that he wouldn't have to explain his absence if they ever managed to say a word to each other again. 

_‘Fuck,’_ Tobio hisses. The fourth position is a doing a number on his thigh. He hasn't been stretching well enough. And— what was he thinking? What was _he_ thinking? What was either one of them— no, it's not, wasn't a surprise that one touch of his lips had Tobio curling like an untended flame. The flame isn't the surprise. The touch is. That it came in the first place. That it came from _him,_ and not Tobio— but then it never would've come from Tobio— and so, is Tobio supposed to be angry? Grateful? Relieved that he wasn't the one to fuck it all up despite somehow always being in the fucking wrong since the beginning? Despite not being able to do a single thing right by him?

The ninth, right leg stretched behind him now, left bent and taking the worst of it. Tobio huffs, breaks the rules, looks down at the way the pressure has turned his hands white. He's leaning too much weight on them, doing it wrong. 

For a second Tobio wants to roll over and call it a day. He's got lunch with more of his father's friends, and he'll have to be at his most alert because he's only started being involved in the discussions this year, and even when he's at his sharpest, they don't take him seriously— they won't for a couple of years yet, Miwa's told him, _count yourself lucky you're not a woman_ — so he might as well do some extra preparation. He's going to need it, because if he can't even stop thinking about him long enough to count seconds for stretches, there's no way he's going to be able to do it sitting at a table eating sea urchin pasta, listening to them talk about real estate, and wishing— like every single time, that— well, that he could be anywhere else. That he could be doing almost anything else, but especially things he has ideas about. 

Tobio has a hundred ideas that'll never see the light of day— he maintains the position, refusing to cave— 

The hundred and first knocks at the door. 

Tobio knows it's him. Miwa wouldn't knock, and seven is still too early for the house staff. But— even if it was the middle of the day and a dozen people were in the house, Tobio would've known. He knows, and so he manages not to choke on air when he calls out _come in,_ but can't keep his heart from speeding up despite himself. 

He looks like a different person. It would've been funny, and maybe romantic, and mostly sad, if Tobio meant that he felt different, like something had changed. But no, he _looks_ different, dressed like Tobio's never seen him dressed before. Grey sweatpants and a hoodie of all things, a pale pink that goes stupidly well with his hair, which is still fluffy from bed. His eyes are alert behind their glasses, though, and Tobio wonders how long he's been awake. How long he's known Tobio didn't sleep there last night. 

He looks— is this how he sleeps at night? Tobio swallows, breathes in. He doesn't even know that. 

Kei swallows, too, his throat working. He closes the door behind him with one hand without turning, like he can't take his eyes off Tobio either. Tobio wonders what's so special. Kei's seen him a dozen times like this, dark training clothes, working up different levels of sweat. Out of breath. Tobio's out of breath, all from a stretch whose seconds he couldn't count.

For once, he lets himself say nothing. Just stares as Kei advances, slowly like he's circling an animal. He's biting the inside of his lower lip, changing its curve, bringing blood to it. His eyes are alert; he's been awake. He's been thinking. About what, Tobio'll probably never know. Never be allowed to know. 

‘Am I intruding?’ Kei asks. Tobio shakes his head. ‘You have too many lights on here.’ 

He isn't wrong, but of all things to say— Tobio ignores him, couldn't find the right switches even if he looked anyway, and besides, it isn't light enough outside yet. Yes, the grey sunrise has filled the entire loft now, but only just; whatever colours he sees on Kei are all gold from the lamps Tobio's left on. It makes for something too gorgeous to change anything about. If Kei's about to chew him out again, he might as well look as beautiful as he did last night. 

But he doesn't. Instead he takes his slippers off and steps on the mat soundlessly, and only speaks again when he's a metre away from Tobio, far enough to be safe, close enough for his height to loom. Tobio swallows. 

‘You said you'd show me sometime,’ Kei says. When Tobio doesn't reply, he raises his eyebrows, but— it doesn't look impatient. The opposite, actually, as if— ‘Judo. You said you'd show me. I told you—’

‘You did.’ Oh, fuck, his voice. He clears his throat. Should've had more to drink. ‘Have you eaten?’

‘Not too much.’ A corner of Kei's lips curls up; something in Tobio clenches. ‘I won't vomit over your mat, if that's what you're worried about. Besides, I don't count on getting the life knocked out of me either.’

‘You're trained?’ What are they doing? 

‘Nope.’ He pulls at the hem of his hoodie, rolls his shoulders. If it's so strange just seeing him stretch, how is Tobio going to handle his— ‘Not in judo specifically, though I know the rules. But you know, us badass yakuza types are taught all sorts of self-defence from birth. You should give me a try.’

Tobio blinks at him, his perfectly serious face, bright eyes, rose gold cheeks and hair. He looks like a painting of a daydream— and then he's— smirking. It's so mean it makes Tobio feel stupid— but so honest it makes him grit his teeth not to sneer back. _You had me there. Fair._

‘Don't look at me like that,’ Kei says, but he's still smiling, pleased. So proud of such a stupid joke. ‘Promise I don't have a knife strapped to my calf.’

‘No, you don’t,’ Tobio replies finally. The smile he swallowed is kicking up dust in his chest now, something strange and glittering flying up with it, like the bits of the world that'll start to come in with the sunlight later in the day. ‘But you do need to take your glasses off. You don't need them here.’

‘You think you're going to bash my face in, don't you?’ 

‘Faces don't get bashed in judo,’ he says, doesn't bother to hide the smile now, though he's not laughing at Kei. ‘Are you sure you're up for this?’ 

Kei drops the smirk. Tobio's managed to hit a nerve with a well-meaning question, which— he thinks— might be a weakness of his husband's. Good intentions. 

He straightens up and pulls his glasses off, folds them, drops them on the shelf next to the sound system. Tobio tries to gauge the prescription through his movements back onto the mat, but nothing changes. He settles into his stance again, feet apart, hands raised and curled before his chin, eyes hard. He's serious about it, Tobio realises, which means he's not allowed to go easy either. He sends up a mental apology to his coach— whom he owes more than just a mental apology to; he hasn't been to a single session since this summer— for using his full weight on a newcomer, and doesn't send one to Kei, who isn't looking for it.

‘Ready?’ Tobio asks. 

Kei tilts his chin up, and gives Tobio three seconds before he lunges.

♕

When Tobio was sixteen— back when he thought he’d play judo at the Olympics one day— the one girl in school who could do no wrong in a single person's eyes asked to eat with him for lunch one day, and asked him if he was only pretending not to notice that she'd been trying to ask him out all year, or if he had really managed to misunderstand every single thing she said and did. Her name was Manami, and Tobio will never forget her. Because she still pesters him once a month, but also because she _was_ always beautiful, with long shiny hair she always wore in some kind of weird fancy braid, and dark eyes and a smile as wide as Hinata's. And because when Tobio tried to stutter through some sort of _I didn't know that's what was happening,_ she didn't get angry, only asked _well, now that you know, how about it?_

_I— I don't know if I'm— sorry—_

Manami had blinked at him, then nodded. _Do you like someone else?_

_Not really._

_Am I even remotely your type?_

_I don't think I have a type._

That had made her eyes light up, all curious, like Tobio was no longer an unrequited crush but an interesting math problem. He remembers the way she'd held up a finger, asking him to wait while she finished chewing her mouthful of rice, then the way she'd put her lunch away altogether, turning to face him on the bench with her legs crossed, dark blue socks reaching up to her bare knees, shoes polished. 

_What about Haruka from the literature club?_

_Not really,_ Tobio had said, putting his own lunch away. Down the hall he could hear Hinata shriek, then the sound of Tanaka cackling. _Sorry._

_And Kana? Maybe you're into the whole bleached hair look._

_I don't think—_ Tobio had stopped short, not because he was scared, but because he really hadn't thought about it until that exact moment. Stopped short, lunchbox still in his hands, mouth open, staring at the concrete under their shoes. And because Manami was the prettiest and smartest and quickest person in their school, she'd leant back and breathed out slowly, then giggled.  


_Okay,_ she'd said, voice smiling. _What about Iwaizumi-senpai from the volleyball club?_

Kei is surprisingly heavy. He's always carried himself in a way that makes Tobio think he's only skin and bone, but here he is, all the weight of the world charging into Tobio, which is his first mistake. Tobio only has to step and twist once to intercept, catch the fall of Kei in the crook of his elbow before throwing a foot in his shin and bringing him toppling to the floor. Kei resists hard enough to force him to let up for just a split-second, but before he can adjust his grip Kei's springing back. 

_That's not self-defence,_ Tobio wants to say, as they step back to their original stances. _Not good self-defence, at least._ But while he doesn't plan to go easy on Kei, he can at least try not to rile him up further, and talking would be against the rules anyway. So he says nothing, only readies himself, then steps forward. Manages to hook both hands in Kei's hoodie before he has to jerk them back, and then Kei's fingers are reaching for his T-shirt, only the material is too thin and he ends up pinching the skin of Tobio's ribs instead. Tobio hisses but doesn't falter, unlike Kei, whose eyes widen a fraction— just enough for Tobio to grab his collar with one hand, left sleeve with another, forcing him to the edge of the mat and managing to twist him down again. This time Kei falls with a thump and a harsh grunt, and Tobio doesn't press down on him, walks away immediately. 

When he turns around to face Kei again, red warmth is crawling up both their necks. Kei's hair is even messier than before from where it took the fall, and his eyes are narrow slits of spite. _Fuck you,_ every line of his body is saying, because Tobio knows how to read those much better than he'll ever know with words. In that way, Kei talked more last night with his arms and lips than he'd spoken with his words all these months, if only because Tobio can find mountains more of meaning in them. _Fuck you,_ he's saying right now, only it's not the friendly _fuck you, asshole_ that opponents say when he bests them. It's _fuck you,_ pure and red, and frustrated. 

Tobio brushes his hair away from his eyebrows, then curls a hand. It could be a training tic, it could be _come here._ He counts on Kei to twist it wrong. And he does— this time he surges forward teeth bared. This time it takes longer than ever, both pairs of hands locked on fabric over shoulders, heads nearly pressing together, Tobio's eyes falling for a second on the frantic movement of their feet before he straightens up, pushing past the downward force of Kei's hands, bringing him up too. Doesn't give him a second's mercy before curling around him from the back and pushing him down, hand braced on the small of his back as he struggles. It isn't easy. Tobio's broken a sweat now; Kei must be soaked under his hoodie. More nerves than action, yes, but that's always been a part of something that starts and escalates and explodes and fizzles as quickly as judo. 

Manami was still the first person to kiss Tobio, because he asked her nicely, and because he refused to let his eighteenth birthday end without kissing _someone_ and that someone was definitely not going to be any of the other idiots he called friends. They'd done it in the downstairs coat closet that he still can't go into without breaking into a smile. Tobio sitting on a stool piled with thick coats, Manami perched on his knees, holding his face and looking down at him so seriously he felt like he was being broken up with when he'd never been with anyone. _Okay, now remember: when I tap once open your mouth, when I tap twice pull back to breathe._ By the end they were both breathless, Tobio grinning like a fool while she cleared her throat and fixed her hair, glared balefully at him. _Thanks, now I'll never fall out of love with you._

_You're going to meet so many cool boys in Chicago. You'll forget me in a month._

_We'll see about that. Now, don't ever kiss someone's neck without testing the waters first. Some people hate that shit. And—_

He hasn't glanced at the clock since Kei came in, but going by the burn in his shoulders and the soles of his feet, they've been going for at least half an hour, if not longer. Not so much a series of bouts as one long curling session of attack and retaliation, Tobio gathering ippon after ippon in his tally while Kei manages to make him curve every once in a while, at best. There's no point telling him to stop, that he'll never match up to someone who's been on the mat since he was four years old, and that Tobio himself can't unlearn the techniques of judo to respond to Kei in any other way. That they aren't well-matched— because it doesn't matter, not when Kei looks like he could go for half an hour longer out of pure derision, even as Tobio tries to stay neutral, precise. Maybe that's what Kei hates. Maybe he thought he'd be able to rile Tobio up again like last night, have a real fight this time, break it fully instead of cracking it.  


Tobio isn't going to give him that. And so, when they find themselves locked in a classic hold, hands pinching shirts just above their chests, and Kei moves in for a sudden kill, so does he. One second they're glaring at each other, mouths open, the next Kei is stepping forward, throwing his right arm over Tobio's shoulder, sides pressing together as it goes all the way down his back. Tobio's body knows what's happening before his brain does— he doesn't have to think before he locks both his own arms around Kei, clasping his hands and forcing Kei's shoulder and chin in place. It's a twisted embrace, the closest they've ever been, Kei's breath a gale in Tobio's ears, but there's no time for that— because Tobio is tipping him backwards, hooking his left leg around Kei's right one, and all it takes is one exact, faithful knock of ankle against calf for Kei to fold backwards like a house of cards, back hitting the mat clean and flat, and one leg kicking up before the foot comes to rest on the foam. Tobio goes down with him though he could've stumbled past by bending his knees, and pins him in place though Kei isn't resisting. 

Kei isn't resisting so Tobio shifts, the bout over, the rules discarded. Because before his brain knows it, his hands are on Kei's slender wrists, pressing them so hard into the foam they leave dents. Before he knows it his body is lowering itself when straightening up would be less painful, when this position— holding himself straight and still above Kei— is ripping his core to shreds, all the more because he's yet to catch his breath. He's only lucky he isn't sweating hard enough to drip, can't even begin to imagine what Kei's face would look like if a drop caught on his neck. Can't even imagine what Kei's face looks like right now though he's looking right at it. Right at it, from so close that each defeated breath of air that escapes his open lips tickles Tobio's skin. And Kei is panting, sweat gathering around his hairline and changing the backward fall of his curls, a couple of them pressed to his forehead, the others in a halo on the dark green of the mat. His eyes, up close, are amber— more amber than amber— more amber. Tobio resists the urge to run a thumb over his lower lashes, and breathes out slow and careful. 

‘How well can you see?’ he whispers.

‘Well enough,’ Kei replies. He looks— he doesn't look incredulous or angry anymore, the way he did just seconds ago. Instead he looks— quiet, the way Tobio imagines he must get in his studio. Even breathless as he is, his eyes are clear, though he seems to have made a religion out of avoiding Tobio's. They're fixed on Tobio's collarbone with a kind of terror, and when Tobio shifts to force him to look up, he closes them altogether. 

And— oh, Tobio wasn't ready for that, for the fanning of his lashes under his eyes. Will never be. Never ready for the fact that Kei hasn't so much as twisted his wrists once though he must be losing circulation. Never ready despite the number of people he's held down like this, both on the mat and off it, for the converging lines of their bodies, ankles brushing, Tobio's toes numb with his position. Kei's long legs. His long arms even bent as they are, held prisoner above his head. His long neck that Tobio can see air travel down.  


No one's ever been this perfect and pliant— is he pliant?— under him. The last time was months ago when winter was on its last legs and his friends were intent on dragging him out to Camelot, mostly so that they could all see Oikawa-san pick up Spanish boys in his ridiculous flower-print shirt, seven shots down. Tobio had ended up in the hotel bed of a lawyer from Stockholm who spoke such perfect Japanese that the whole thing had felt like a fever dream. He means to say, no one he cares about has ever been this perfect and pliant under him. Because he knows he cares about Kei, even if he doesn't know how— he just knows he can't not care. Maybe Kei can, to have kissed him so thoughtlessly last night, to show up here knowing Tobio would end up whipping him down onto the mat like a length of rope. Maybe he can, but Tobio can't.

Tobio can't, so he holds himself still though his very being is straining with it, and waits. Waits until Kei's eyes flutter open again, this time rising to meet his. Waits for Kei's breaths to stop coming so fast, but they only hitch and quicken. So Tobio waits, instead, for his own chest to calm down. It doesn't. Because then Kei is craning his neck— trying to raise himself up— falling back down with an airy sound as Tobio watches helplessly.

‘You're cheating,’ Kei whispers, then. Tobio narrows his eyes despite his hammering heart, and Kei shifts his gaze, tilts his head and eyes up to where their hands are joined. And it's— it's so fucking innocent, somehow, the way he does it. The silent, almost playful way he does it. Like they're both in on a secret that they can't speak out loud. 

It undoes Tobio. Undoes him, so that instead of letting go of Kei's wrists, he lowers himself and lets his weight go, the burn washing outwards, and presses his open mouth to Kei's. Inhales his sigh, long and low and leaf-frail, feels the way his fingers twitch and curl. Feels the heat just inside his lips, the hint of coffee behind his teeth. The wet warmth of his tongue. Kei twists a wrist— he lets go— brings it up to brush Tobio's hair out of his eyes, strands falling between long fingers. He twirls them there, keeps a hand in the air. The other one snakes around Tobio's neck, slipping under the neck of his T-shirt, five points of startling cold against the first ridges of his spine. 

End of the bout. Tobio's ready for it when one of Kei's legs wraps around his, pulling him down all the way, the heel digging into the inside of his thigh. They break apart then, Kei twisting his head to the side to pant against the mat, Tobio exhaling through his nose, eyes shut tight as he rolls his hips, pressing their lengths together, hard and heavy, and hot. Rules discarded. Tobio's more than ready— reaches down just as Kei reaches up, fits their lips together fiercer this time, deeper. Hungry, suddenly, for what he didn't get to taste last night: the soft skin of his lower lip, the wet exhales at the corner of his mouth, the bony edge of his jaw. His neck, when Kei bares it wordlessly, both hands in Tobio's hair now. The clean morning sweat on his skin; under it the rosehip of his lotion, the pulsing of his veins, his throat going taut as he swallows right under Tobio's teeth. Then taut again, a strangled sound humming through it as he raises his hips and slots their legs together, folding one leg up, flexing the muscles of his thigh. He might have lost but he isn't weak, and Tobio's known that since the moment he stepped in here ready to fight. 

And it's senseless, it is; that there's been so much of Kei since last night that Tobio can't even sort through the images in real time. That right now, when he should be focusing on finding an angle that can pull them both to completion like it's the only thing that matters in the world— which it is— he's thinking back to fifteen minutes ago, half an hour ago, Kei's fighting stance in his stupid soft pyjamas, his stupid soft hair, his sharp eyes. The way he looked when he lunged, like he'd gladly kill Tobio. The way the air sounded when it was punched out of him by gravity. The way gravity pulled at him when Tobio pushed. The gravity of him. His stunning painting of a face. His hands at the hem of Tobio's shirt, pushing under the hem, climbing up his ribs. His hands splayed over Tobio's straining stomach, fingers pressing into the dip of his sternum hard enough to hurt. Higher, thumbs over nipples, nails digging into the thin flesh of his flanks. Tobio's hands, onepushing waistbands down and wrapping around them both— Kei gasps— the other reaching through swathes of thick pale fabric to slide under Kei's perfect waist, counting the mountains and valleys of his coiling spine as Kei bucks his hips up, dragging, burning weight—

Downstairs, the unmistakeable noise of a machine coming to life. The carpet gets cleaned on Monday mornings. 

Tobio freezes, suddenly remembering that the world isn't only the four walls around him and Kei and the mat under them— Kei _growls,_ deep in his throat, yanks him down hard and selfish, kisses him like he's trying to eat him in one bite. Tobio groans, holds him tighter.

‘Don't you dare stop,’ Kei hisses, and Tobio would laugh if it was anyone else, but it isn't, and an embarrassing surge of heat fills his stomach, pushing him urgently close, as close as Kei must be to talk like that. ‘God, I hate your fucking house, I—’ 

_‘Our_ house,’ Tobio says, before biting down on his neck. Abandoning all rules and pride to grind and twist his hand like it's his first time, graceless, desperate. Barely manages to work his way back to Kei's lips just in time to swallow the punched-out groan Kei lets go of nowhere— out of thin air— rising in pitch as if he's catching himself by surprise too, along with Tobio— the terrifying whirr of the machine, the beginning of the day, the real one— Kei, legs crossing around Tobio's waist, arms crossing over his shoulders. Pressing him so close he can't move his fist anymore, can only gasp, bear down in place— is only allowed to feel when Kei comes, hot and wet and pulsing between his fingers, not do anything about it other than silence him with his mouth. Keeping him quiet until Tobio’s crying out himself, the rich darkness from last night filling his vision again. 

♕

He’s doomed to only sort through it hours later every time, always a little late. Processing it when he’s supposed to be doing something else. He’ll have to catch up with himself, because it won’t do to go slowly mad like this. It keeps coming back to him, curling hot and painful in his stomach like heartburn.

The only thing that keeps him from getting up from the lunch table and walking away from the group of men who are talking about the exact landowners and construction groups he knew they’d be talking about, is the fact that he has nowhere to walk to that’ll let him escape his own mind. Lunch, out on the patio to profit in the sunlight, lasts a week. He has no appetite, picks at his spaghetti and drinks more coffee than he should, and only speaks when spoken to, which isn’t often. Under the table one foot rubs against the other, the sharp edge of the sole of his shoe welcome pressure against the soft cartilage of his joints. He wonders what Kei’s having for lunch in the city— and he’s gone again. Thinking back to six hours ago, the sight of him, wrecked and pink-purple-grey-gold, eyes so light Tobio could see how his pupils had widened, eating away at the honey of the irises. Tobio’s never been with someone with eyes like that— can’t forget that sight, so incredible and natural. And obvious. And honest, more honest than the even rest of his body, his growling voice. The ring on his pale finger.

‘You look like a hairball Kenma’s cat coughed up,’ Hinata tells him lovingly when he ducks into the car that afternoon, the sun bright on his hair. Tobio rolls his eyes and waits for him to get settled before throwing it into drive. ‘Atsumu-san said him and Hoshiumi can meet up directly in Ikebukuro. Why do you look like that? Are you going to get smashed? It’s like three in the afternoon. You know I can’t drive this ugly truck.’

‘Can you shut your mouth for five fucking minutes?’ Tobio grits out. ‘And tell me the name of that stupid karaoke place again. And then shut up again.’

It might be a dumb move, not waiting around long enough to find out what his father thinks of the fact that he ditched their afternoon paperwork session to go to a karaoke bar in the city, but he figures Miwa will update him on the reaction even from the courtroom. Besides, it’s the first time Tobio’s ever done something like this. He’s been good enough for twenty-five years to be allowed one skip. It’s not like he’d have been useful anyway, staring at the files and stray pages before him while his father lamented— for the hundredth time— how slow the digitalisation of it all is, oh, the bureaucracy of this country. Only half-listening, because the other half of his hearing is still so tuned into that last broken breath he’d heard, right in his ear, that he’s almost afraid he shouldn’t be driving.

The day blurs by. Tobio has no need to go home yet; the house has no use for him when Kei isn’t in it. He’s in the city all day himself, or at least that’s what he told Tobio in as short a sentence as he could; _I’ll be back in the evening. Plans all day._ And maybe Tobio would’ve thought to ask more if he wasn’t busy trying to come back to himself, gawking dumbstruck at the casual ease with which Kei stole one of his jackets from the little shelf in the gym and wrapped it around his waist, not one bit embarrassed about it, or about why he had to do it— when Tobio was already going red up to the ears wondering how he could even bring this up to himself, let alone someone else— how he’d be able to ask for marriage advice when the question included _so my husband and I sparred for half an hour before grinding on the floor like teenagers and now I both can’t wait to get home and never want to go home again._

So he decides against it, though Atsumu cracks enough lewd jokes to almost hit home, only failing because they’re aimed at everyone in turns. By the time he gets around to annoying Tobio about his distracted state, no one’s even paying attention. It’s hard to, anyway, when Hoshiumi picks out something from the _Aggretsuko_ soundtrack and starts ripping his vocal chords apart. So instead of trying to talk, Tobio leans back on the couch with lemonade in his hand and watches his friends make fools of themselves. Atsumu’s going back to Kobe tomorrow, too, so Tobio can’t bring himself to make their outing about him. As it is they’ve seen each other less and less this year as if twenty-five was some sudden cap to their friendship, though every time they manage to get together, it’s like they met just yesterday. Still, Hinata’s the only one Tobio meets regularly, and mostly for doujou work— which he’ll have to make a call about sooner or later too, and then maybe he won’t even see Hinata all that often.

Tobio wonders, for a second, if this is just how the rest of his life is going to be. His family, desk work, and—

The evening crackles. Tobio chews morosely on chicken while Hinata tears into a burger the size of his head, and watches as Atsumu painstakingly makes a swan out of the paper mat on his tray. He’s got matches coming up, Tobio knows, both because he’s made three jokes about this being his last junk meal and because Tobio knows what everyone’s tournament schedules look like. He finally clears his head enough to ask Atsumu and Hoshiumi about theirs, and listens carefully as they reply. Lets one twinge distract him from another, so that by the time he drives back, alone this time, he isn’t even really thinking about anything.

♕

It’s past ten when he gets home, and his is the last car to be parked. Only the hallway lamps are on; everyone’s taken themselves to bed. Tobio ducks into the kitchen to grab a bottle of water, and into the laundry room to see if there are any unsorted clothes of his that he can steal from the dryer. Everyone might be in bed, but he’s not risking running into Kei in their bathroom, can’t even compute the idea of it right now. So he’s relieved when he finds a pair of nightclothes, grabs them and makes his way to the guest bathroom upstairs.

The evenings are still warm enough for cold showers, will be for a month yet. Tobio takes one, sighing even as he shivers, taking the time to work foam through every strand of his hair. Miwa didn’t text him, he realises, and wonders if he was really needed for the paperwork after all. Wonders if he could just sit her down and tell her— wonders what he’s supposed to be doing tomorrow, because he knows he’s needed in Ashikaga proper for something, but doesn’t remember what that _something_ is. Then it’ll be Wednesday and Hana will be over, and he’ll get to see—

Tobio turns the water off. The towel is soft and warm and welcome, and he makes sure to properly dry his hair, leaves the towel on the rack. Tries to open the door as quietly as possible in case Kei’s already asleep, and even if he isn’t, because— well. But it’s neither; instead the dimmest lamps of the room are lit up, almost candle-small, and he hears water running. And— there’s no question of falling asleep, then, so Tobio settles back against the pillows and brings out his laptop, tries the first episode Oikawa-san’s been trying to get them all to watch for the past three months, and gives up ten minutes in, the morning catching up to him again.

He doesn’t have to suffer for long— well, any longer. Just as he gets shifty enough to slide a little down the sheets and tip his head up to the cream ceiling, he hears Kei step out. There’s the sound of his slippers on the carpet, and then his silhouette past the partition, bending over the bed and placing something on it, then just— standing there, for a moment, as Tobio stares.

The shadow shifts, its darkness coming closer. And then a single hand curling over the metal edges of the partition, followed by the rest of Kei. Tall and filling the entire room, as Tobio sits up. A loose robe, black velvet sleeves hanging wide like wings on his thin arms, silk pants just like Tobio’s own. His glasses low on his nose, hair still wet and dark at the edges where it curls in sharp bleeding spikes over his neck. Uneven washes of red on what Tobio can see of his collarbones and chest— his shower must’ve been hot, then, steaming.

Tobio sits up and folds his laptop shut, draws his legs closer to himself. Kei steps forward, eyes trained on the floor, and rests one knee on the bed, the silk denting under his weight. Slowly he perches on the very edge. Tobio worries that he’s going to fall off, but doesn’t say it.

Instead, he breathes, the air finally entering his lungs again more than twelve hours of suffocation later.

‘How was your day?’ he asks.

Kei blinks, then snorts, running a hand over his mouth.

‘It was really fucking weird,’ he answers, and it’s Tobio’s turn to laugh. Still on edge, then, but why? What does it matter? They’re already married. There’s nowhere to go now. ‘And yours?’

‘Weird,’ Tobio repeats. ‘I ditched my dad and went to karaoke with my friends.’

‘Something tells me you don’t sing.’

‘God, no, I don’t. Do you?’

‘Not unless I’m _looking_ to get banned from public establishments.’ Tobio’s turn to laugh, again. Kei finally looks up, and— miracle of miracles— continues, unprompted. ‘I do love music though. You were asking the other day. I— can’t paint without music.’

‘Let me guess, piano?’

Kei raises an eyebrow. ‘EDM, actually, and fuck you.’

Tobio can’t help it. He smiles, sharp and mean because he’s tired, and shrugs. ‘Sorry. Would’ve known better if I knew you at all.’

Kei’s stare hardens for just a second. And really, a part of Tobio’d give anything to go back forty-eight hours, when they only had the memory of having gotten on each other’s nerves once, and not this infinite fuel of— whatever it is, because it’s not anger, and Tobio doesn’t hate him, not the way Kei seems to hate _him—_ but he can’t not care, in some stupid way that’s dark and hot and possessive, like his brain’s only just now adding two and two and realising that the man he saw strain and tighten and _come_ this morning is the same man who had such sharp and brilliant things to say to Alisa Haiba that she refused to let go of his arm all evening. Is the same man who’s Tobio’s husband, sitting on the edge of his bed like he’ll burn alive if he comes any closer, his edges so perfect against the jade of the wall that keeps them apart.

But there’s no going back, and there’s nowhere else to go. It’s probably what Kei’s telling himself too, because suddenly he’s shifting to sit better, and sighing. ‘Ask.’

‘What did you do today?’

‘Brunch and galleries with Akaashi. He made me try a cocktail with Swiss bitters and it was the worst thing I’ve ever put in my mouth.’

Tobio chews on the inside of his cheek. Kei catches it, and rolls his eyes.

‘ _Yes,’_ he huffs. ‘Yes, I have seen that man naked numerous times. Now what did you gain from that?’

‘Nothing,’ Tobio says. ‘Information.’ History.

‘Well, there’s your information. We won’t be doing it again.’

‘You could.’ He means it. He isn’t delusional like that, has never been, and if anything he’s surprised that Kei’s even setting himself a rule about it. ‘I mean— you’d have to be careful, but—’

‘No.’ Kei’s voice is hard. ‘Thanks for your magnanimity, but no. Not while—’ He cuts himself off, like he thinks it’s impolite to bring up the fact that he’ll be gone three months from now, when Tobio’s the one who proposed the deal. He doesn’t press, though, and after a second Kei’s shoulders relax.

‘You really wiped the floor with me this morning,’ he says, quieter, smiling. ‘I did remember that you did a lot of judo when we were younger. But over time it just became a detail.’

‘It’s just a detail to me, too, now.’ Tobio spares a second’s thought to Atsumu’s first match, a month from now. _I didn’t think it would be_ isn’t something he’s ever even confessed to Hinata, let alone Kei, so he says nothing, and if there’s a single positive— between Tobio’s inability to put words together despite needing everything explained to him, and Kei’s refusal to talk despite being so eloquent— well, it’s that at least Kei can read his silences, if Tobio can’t read _his._ So he doesn’t press either, out of that kindness or pure apathy, and the conversation stills. Long enough for Tobio to think back to it, think back to the morning, Kei’s body under his, muscles under his hands. How it was everything but still not enough, the way this isn’t enough, because Tobio was only just getting to Kei. Is only just getting to him, barely, with the tips of his fingers. ‘You were strong.’

 _Did you think about it all day too,_ he doesn’t ask.

Kei takes a deep breath, audible. ‘Ask.’

Tobio thinks he still looks like a painting, and the same one, only under a different light. The way colours only seem their real selves under pure white, and turn into lies under gold. Kei shifts and the lies turn golden, his real self plunging into forest-green shadow, and something dry and sharp catches in Tobio’s throat as he swallows. He doesn’t ask.

‘You were stronger,’ Kei says, then, like it’s another secret. Heat fills Tobio from stomach to forehead, his blood ringing in his ears. ‘I liked that. And I like that black T-shirt of yours. And I really hope you thought about me all day too, because I’m going to die if you hold back on me tonight.’

Tobio breathes in, reaches for the water on his nightstand. It’s cold and wet, and he downs a third of it, eyes closed. It numbs his throat. Clears his head. When he puts it away and turns, there’s something brighter about Kei. Keener, like he’s glowing against his dark robe. His hands, curled into fists over the emerald silk of the sheets. Tobio can’t wait to see what the rest of him looks like against them, the painting of him. Reaches over to undo one of those fists, barely letting Kei breathe before pulling him forward. He falls easily, house of cards, his other hand flying up to brace against Tobio’s chest as he hangs his head with a great exhale.

‘I can be good if I like you,’ Kei says. Looks up, smiles grimly. ‘I don’t like you. And if you tease me too much—’

Tobio puts a hand over his mouth. His lips are still warm, and there’s the slight press of teeth when Tobio tightens his hold, fingers pressing into Kei’s jaw. His eyes are wide. Surprised.

‘I know I said I’m tired of figuring things out,’ Tobio whispers, ‘but at least leave me something to discover.’

His eyes narrow, but when Tobio lowers his hand, Kei is smiling again, so cold it burns, the thrill going right through to Tobio’s core.

‘Very well, my lord,’ he says, and oh, he planned that, he’s been wanting to say it. Tobio hears it, the way it sings. Takes it right out of his mouth before he can even think it again, with tongue and teeth. And he might not know a lot about Kei, but he does speak the language of bodies, and he’s only needed to have Kei’s for a few minutes to know just how rough he likes the world to be with him. Knows enough to trust him not to be soft. Doesn’t know the first thing about Kei, but knows that he wants Tobio inside him.

_So tell me, what do you want from me?_

This, Kei’s shoulders say, as they shrug off the robe when Tobio undoes the sash, pulling it out all the way and dropping the silk snake of it next to the pillows. This, when Tobio pushes him down against its black splayed mess, the way his eyes flutter closed when Tobio takes his glasses off, lets them drop too. When Tobio bends down to kiss him again, and Kei sucks so harshly on his lower lip that it makes Tobio whine in surprise— this. Every nerve of him is lit like a fuse, every nerve of Kei’s. His rabbit-pulse kicking under Tobio’s thumbs— his neck, then his chest, nipples so sensitive he’s hissing before Tobio even closes his lips around them, then arching up, fingers grabbing and slipping on the sheets— this. Hands back on Tobio then, where they should’ve been all day, clawing and cruel and cold— this, his nails say at Tobi’s nape as he shakes his pants off frantic and messy. This, his smirk when Tobio stops short, when a hand traveling down finds only skin and slide. He’s prepared— he’s planned. Been thinking about Tobio all day.

Nothing, he says, when Tobio asks. Mouth opening around a silent cry as Tobio’s fingers work at him so easily, only to confirm his preparation, only to stare, no shame. Nothing on him now but Tobio, and Tobio, fully clothed with sweat running down his neck, too much _world_ between their bodies. Nothing but Kei’s little breath of surprise, then sharp laugh, at the touch of Tobio’s cold ring on the trembling inside of his thigh. And then nothing at all but his eyes, raking downwards as Tobio sits up over him and does away with his clothes too, twisting this way and that so that a part of him is always touching Kei when he does it. Even just a knee at his flank. Even just that.

Everything, as he sinks into Kei. As he makes a sound Tobio’s never heard a person make. Like he’s ready to be everything but human. Everything.

♕

The last time Tobio stayed up late enough to have to sneak into the kitchen for a snack, he was probably nineteen. It’s not like he’s never walked around in the hallways of the house late at night since, but not like this, and not with someone else in tow.

Out of everything that’s happened in the day, Kei looks like he finds _this_ bit the most embarrassing. His face as he follows Tobio down the stairs is so stupidly stoic that Tobio has to swallow a laugh more than once. His hair’s a fucking mess, eyes red-rimmed like he’d curl up and sleep on the carpet if he wasn’t so hungry— and he is, he’s the reason they’re creeping around like thieves in their own house. Because not a full minute after his second orgasm, he raised his head weakly, shifting from his downward dog and making Tobio shudder, and said, low and serious, _I need sugar._

He needs sugar, and Tobio doesn’t know what he’d like from the kitchen, so here they both are. Tobio’s body still tingling and weak and aching, finally, after everything it’s been through today. And Kei, shuffling sulky and silent behind him like he’s a friend come to sleep over for the first time. Shy, almost.

‘Miwa’s a huge snack hoarder,’ Tobio whispers as he flips one of the chimney lights on, just soft enough not to kill their eyes. ‘I think she’s Nissin World’s number one customer. She loves all those American chips.’

Kei snorts, comes to lean against the counter next to him. He looks ghostly. ‘More of a sweet tooth, myself.’

‘Yeah, I guessed. She keeps a cabinet full of chocolate too. I think it’s the third one. By the window.’

He goes to investigate the fridge while Kei checks the cabinets, and crosses his arms, squinting at the mess of things inside. He goes through the shelves carefully. Coconut milk, cold cuts, so many fucking eggs. Hits jackpot just as Kei closes a third door with a sigh.

‘Do you like pomegranate?’

He does. Watches sleepily as Tobio cracks the cut in the shell open with his hands, then watches as he clumsily picks out the gleaming red seeds in twos and threes, piling them on the saucer he’s fished out from under the counter. Only when Tobio’s done with one half does he come forward, sliding the saucer away with a quiet _thanks._

Tobio watches, too. The ruby-eating ghost, robe loose around his shoulders, chewing carefully around each mouthful in complete silence. He doesn’t ask if Tobio wants any. Tobio doesn’t. He doesn’t want anything but to watch, the thrill not done with him yet, not having wrung out every drop of him. The sight of him eating with his hands makes Tobio so hungry he’s almost sick.

A thought strikes him suddenly, seeing the way Kei’s fingers curl around the porcelain edge of the saucer, how the juice is starting to stain.

‘Did you— where’s the cake? In your studio?’

Kei blinks, lowers the saucer slowly, and turns to face Tobio with a look that screams _fuck me,_ but— very different from the one from before. This one is horrified, as it should be, because it’s been over twenty-four hours since that cake’s been open in the humid air of September.

‘I—’ he groans, puts the saucer away. Tobio tries, tries not to laugh. ‘Well, you reap what you sow.’


	6. Chapter 6

Kei has never been so stupid an animal with someone that they need to set rules not for their own good, but for the people around them. Some of them _are_ personal, still: they never fuck on Kei's bed, and he never sleeps in Tobio's, and those are personal ones. But the bathroom is not, because it only takes one misguided— if ridiculously hot— session in the shower for them to realise that Miwa's room is right above theirs and that sound runs easily through pipes. Kei would argue that it's still a personal rule, though; it's only because Tobio said he refuses, _ever_ again, to have to look her in the eye over breakfast and see laughter so poorly disguised that it has even Kei's ears burning.  


Not much else is off limits, apart from the greenhouses. Tobio _did_ get that distant look in his eyes at Kei's suggestion, the one that Kei's learned to recognise as some kind of unachievable caliber of want, but ultimately they had to let some of the blood flow upwards to their brains and conclude that the risk was simply too high— and risk, unfortunately, was the one thing that would have to be kept out of this. Out of their bedroom, hands, and mouths. Maybe that’s why they never sleep in the same bed, because Kei falling into exhausted slumber the moment he crawls under his own sheets past the partition is less risky than ever waking up next to Tobio. 

Not much else is off limits. Tobio's the quickest learner of bodies Kei's ever met; most people already have an idea of how they like to do things, and while they're gifted themselves, they're rarely as eager to please others, too busy watching their perfected moves in their mind's eye. Or maybe Kei should have slept with less artists and more fighters, because there's something famished about the way Tobio commits each new detail to memory, something that tugs at Kei and makes him want to _perform,_ if only to give back as good as he gets. If only to say _just so you know, I can do this too._

He does try, rivals itch with itch, almost frightened at how addictive the empty anticipation of fullness can get. It's ironic that this happened just as their schedules started to include something other than their marriage, but he can't complain: there's something entirely different about spending the day between Proserpine's furtive eyes in the studio and sidelined conservation work with Akiteru's team in the city when he knows that he'll have to wait until after dinner to have his frame thrown against the bedroom wall as if he weighs nothing. To undo the cold metal clasp of Tobio’s belt and press his mouth to the cut of his pelvis. Something entirely different about going upstairs to Tobio’s gym at first light, and learning from him, basking in his expertise. And if Kei is curious about why Tobio stopped something he was so good at, he keeps it to himself, as if to savour a little longer the idea that he might one day be able to know. 

There's a limitless dark glee of possibility to it all, not unlike the bright lick of light that curls in his chest sometimes when he remembers that he can paint, that at any moment he could choose to create art out of air— only, this high is different, because there's no possibility of being disappointed by the results of attempting to execute a fantasy. No, there isn't, because Tobio doesn't disappoint. Is always three steps ahead of whatever Kei thought he could do, would do. Kei wants to be thrown against a wall— Tobio lifts him up against one and keeps him there throughout. Kei wants to feel the air on every inch of his skin— Tobio is shrieking crimson pain down the line of his back. Kei knocks on the partition at four in the morning, once, and within a minute Tobio's nightlamp comes alive. 

Kei— wants to be looked in the eye at gallery openings, and have his expertise respected as an entity now independent from the boy his family raised. Tobio's name takes care of it. The key to it all, then, was only that simple: making an arrangement that wasn't about them, about them. Suddenly it doesn't matter what he wears when he meets the rest of Tobio's friends for the first time, because he doesn't care what they think of his family, only what they think of his person— and so it matters more than ever, but only because he can't figure out which of his turtlenecks makes him look more pretentious, and how hard Tadashi will laugh at him if he attaches a gold chain to his glasses. Suddenly Tadashi meets Hinata, and Akaashi meets Miwa, and Kei buys that drink for Alisa; two, actually, one in compassion when he meets the bumbling horror that is her supermodel younger brother. 

They make an arrangement that wasn't about them, about them. Stuffy formal dinners at hotels become more bearable for Tobio with Kei's constant commentary; he sees it in the way Tobio's hands relax under the table, the way he drinks more wine, laughs more, listens to what the other person is saying in a conversation instead of freezing up trying to anticipate what the perfect reply would be. Kei never talks in those groups, but he listens, and every once in a while in the car on the way back, he'll make an observation and joke and platitude all in one, and Tobio will bark with ungraceful, startled laughter; shake his head, say _fuck off, now I'll never unsee it and I have to meet him again on Saturday._

Kei comes up with possibilities; Tobio makes opportunities. This arrangement wasn't about them, and now it is. If it can't be about how much they get along despite everything, like they only needed to give themselves a brutal, ripping chance, then at least it can be about how well their desires get along for the moment. Tobio's, to be good and giving, and Kei's, to take while he's here.

♛

A sharp temperature drop one October morning has Kei almost fainting on the stairs, which, of course, is not even remotely humiliating for a man of character such as himself. No, he bears the misfortune of being spotted by _both_ Kunimi and Shimizu— running a paperwork errand for Miwa— and being herded back to the bedroom with dignity, but he does insist on being led to his own bed. To his credit, it takes Shimizu three entire minutes of wheedling before he admits that he gets slightly debilitating migraines, and to Shimizu’s credit, no amount of pleading can convince her not to call up the family physician.

Kei suffers through all the symptoms-questioning on the phone with patience, and he’s glad that the physician is that very precise type of jovial old man who keeps things short and sweet. Shimizu has him on speaker; he laughs and says _this one’s been dealing with it all his life, best to just let him be,_ and Kei can’t help but laugh a little himself at Shimizu’s sheepish _all right, then._

By the time they get some water and pills in him and make good on the doctor’s instructions, it’s advanced fully. Empty nausea, not even bile, something hollow and horrible pulsing in his chest, and without fail that uncanny feeling of half-distress, half-resignation. It’ll go down soon enough, but soon enough _isn’t_ soon enough after all, not here with their imposing— if well-meant— hovering. He’s glad when they leave, sincerely glad to finally be able to let loose. Curls up on his side under the covers and exhales shakily through his mouth, tastes involuntary salt on his gums, floats.

He doesn’t know how long it is before he hears voices in the corridor, but takes only a second to recognise the frantic tone of one of them. And he shouldn’t be smiling at that, so he’s glad he has no strength to do it. Because a second later the door is clicking open and shut, quiet as if Tobio’s trying his best to be invisible. The carpet helps; Kei doesn’t register how close he is until he’s crouching next to the bed and the heady scent of his cologne hits. Kei closes his eyes tighter, expecting it to hurt, but it doesn’t. If anything it solidifies his presence, in the absence of his image.

‘Are you awake?’ Tobio murmurs. His voice doesn’t hurt either. It’s dark, thick honey, warm and heavy on Kei’s ears.

‘No,’ Kei replies, and Tobio huffs. ‘Not awake. Go away.’

He doesn’t, because he doesn’t listen to Kei like that. Instead there’s the soft shifting of him settling down on the floor, and then his voice again, just a little closer, and even softer.

‘Can I touch you?’

‘Depends.’ Kei actually manages to muster up a smile, feels the pull on the corners of his mouth. ‘My head? Yes. My dick? Not so much.’

‘Shut up,’ Tobio whispers. But then, four, five beats later: there’s a hand in Kei’s hair, come so slowly that he doesn’t have to flinch, and landing so gingerly, as if Kei’s a week-old puppy and not— well. Tobio’s hand smells like that weird gel of his, all the way up to his wrist. That smell doesn’t hurt either. ‘Kunimi said you would’ve fallen down eleven steps if he hadn’t caught you.’

‘False. I would’ve died of embarrassment around the fourth step, so the other seven don’t count.’ The ache seizes the back of his neck in a sudden clawed grip; he grits his teeth, tries not to let it show; fails. Tobio curls his hand away; Kei wishes he wouldn’t, then wishes he had never thought that, then wishes he could really just faint. ‘Did you clear your entire schedule for your poor ailing husband?’

‘Stop talking. Go back to sleep.’

Kei makes to protest, but then there’s a series of sounds, all of them soft and careful. Rustling, clicking, tapping. Tobio’s taking his watch off, and that’s his phone being placed on the nightstand. There’s such an absurd comfort to hearing it, the way Kei himself feels at the end of a long day, unraveling his scarf and rolling his socks off, folding his glasses. He wishes Tobio would, too. Take off his shirt, and his slacks, his socks. The world between them.

He doesn’t, and he doesn’t slip under the covers when he lies down next to Kei. Stays on top of them, making the silk tug and tighten over Kei’s frame. And that’s comforting too, as close to the real thing as it’s ever going to get when Tobio’s hands are no longer on him. Before Kei knows it he’s drifting off to sleep, the ebb and flow of the pain gentler, lulling, almost, if pain can be lulling.

♛

Tobio didn’t actually clear his schedule, or wasn’t allowed to. He leaves at some point when Kei’s sleeping, and sends, of all people, Miwa to keep watch in his stead. Kei only realises when he blearily opens his eyes to the sight of her in the armchair by the window, earphones in, stylus tapping away on her screen. She’s in her pyjamas the way she often is on her days off, hair loose, eyes bored.

It’s absurd. It’s domestic. It presses on a bruise called Akiteru somewhere deep inside him.

‘Hello,’ he rasps, and Miwa jumps, puts a hand to her chest. ‘Sorry.’

‘No, you’re all right,’ she says. Stretches to nudge the bottle on the nightstand towards him. ‘Drink up. Are you feeling better?’

‘A little, thank you.’ Kei sits up, winces as his head reminds him a little isn’t a lot, but manages to swallow some water anyway. ‘Did he assign you bedside duty? I’m really fine, you know.’

‘He did.’ Miwa shrugs, then smiles. ‘You looked like death, so none of us felt at peace just leaving you here unsupervised.’

‘I feel like the heroine of an Austen novel,’ Kei sighs. Miwa throws her head back and laughs, then gasps and shuts herself up with a hand clapped over her mouth.

‘Sorry, was that too loud?’ she whispers, but her eyes are sparkling with mirth, and Kei finds himself smiling as he shakes his head. ‘And well, you’re about to be a real heroine, you have a visitor.’ Kei freezes. ‘Your brother’s coming over for dinner. He’ll be here anytime now, actually.’

So much for the bruise, then, and really, he’s lucid enough to feel some degree of remorse. If in some childish moment of weakness he really _did_ want his brother, he knows that Akiteru would take a cross-country train to be there. Almost did, once, when Kei was up in Sapporo doing God knows what and had brought a shelf crashing down on himself while literally on the phone with him. He’ll never forget the cry Akiteru had let out on the other end of the line. Has missed him, after all, despite the wedding and the radio silence and the way Akiteru stays out of his own office when Kei’s over to work with the team.

‘Will he?’ he asks mildly. ‘What did you bribe him with?’

Miwa doesn’t rise to it, probably because she has a little brother too, and has seen her share of fights. ‘You, of course.’

♛

There’s no stopping Hana now that she has VIP entry into the studio. Ever since the first time Kei let her in, reassuring her frantic mother that no, there was absolutely no art that cost upwards of a hundred thousand yen (not yet, anyway, because there’s more than one canvas in the shelves that Akiteru will stroke a perfect signature onto, because Kei has refused to do it all his life and refuses still, and then it might eventually sell for billions) and that he would make sure she didn’t chug a bottle of turpentine, and no, she would not be exposed to unsightly anatomy just yet— she’s made a playground out of his workspace, their art sessions now a bi-weekly affair.

He keeps his real work away for the most part, making sure only to have harmless things like landscapes and still life lying around, especially flowers, which she loves with a passion that suggests that she has thoroughly internalised her own name. In fact, at least twenty minutes every Tuesday and Thursday are taken up by greenhouse visits, because while she may be a precocious little artist, she has no concept of the fleeting passage of individual days, and consequently expects the sweet peas she planted weeks ago to already have bloomed. _Why’s it take long? So long. Wanna see now._

‘I want see now too,’ Tobio tells her solemnly once, then winces, but it’s too late. Sugawara’s already chiding _no baby talk with the baby, please, Tobio_ from his corner, and Kei’s hiding his laugh in an exaggerated cough into his elbow.

The rest of the time he gives her gouache to play with, a Winsor & Newton set that he refuses to admit to buying specially for her when an incredibly amused Akaashi asks. She’s obsessed with wet-on-wet; makes unlikely sunsets of green and pink, then, bored, midnight skies that she doesn’t let dry before attacking with dots of white that bleed so that every star is only a veined suggestion of itself. Kei plugs in a hairdryer to speed up the process once, only to have her throw an absolute fit; an industrious child, then.

On one such Thursday, he doesn’t have the time to put Proserpine away before his protégée runs in squealing, having long since memorised the way to the studio, and it’s too late then.

Hana stops short in the middle of the room, all eighty centimetres of her, and stares. It’s stunning itself, how she’s transfixed by it, dusty sunlight streaming in on her little form, her wide eyes, open mouth. For a second Kei sees Proserpine through her wonder and not through his own fatigued critique; and she _is_ magnificent, and prepossessing. The glow of her growing by the day as he works in more and more layers, breathing more life into the canvas. The darkness around her, sotto voce.

‘Pretty lady,’ Hana whispers in awe. ‘Wanna see.’

Kei kneels and opens his arms; she puts her little hands on his shoulders and holds on tight. Positively _oohs_ as he lifts her closer to the canvas, settling down on the stool while she grabs onto his knees and thighs.

‘Can I touch?’

‘No touching.’ He doesn’t have to say it twice. She leans back and tilts her head, and when he realises she’s trying to mimic Proserpine’s angle, he can’t help the laugh that slips out of his mouth. Hides his face in his hand for a second before looking back up. ‘Where is she looking, what do you think?’

‘Outside,’ Hana answers confidently. ‘Wanna play but it’s raining.’

‘You think it’s raining outside?’

‘Always raining here. Kei made this?’

‘Yes,’ he says, smiles. ‘Well, not first. That was Rossetti.’

‘Rossy?’

‘Good enough. Yes. Kei copied him.’

‘Copy?’

Kei clears his throat and swallows a sigh, then figures the easiest thing to do would be to pull out the reference sheet. But he hasn’t needed it today, and he’s too lazy to make even the small trek over to his desk, so he looks up the painting on his phone instead, and holds it out next to the canvas. ‘See? Someone drew it first. Then I drew the same thing.’

‘Why?’

He lowers the phone, blinks. ‘Well—’ Because a quarter of his family’s wealth comes from copying someone’s homework and selling it, and another quarter of it comes from swallowing someone’s homework and doing a better job than them, of being them. Because he hates that one of those is a crime, but he also hates that crime itself, and neither hate is stronger than his love for beautiful things, for painting. Restoration and otherwise. Reproduction and otherwise.

Forgeries and otherwise.

‘Because it’s pretty,’ he says, finally.

‘Not fun,’ Hana declares. ‘Make a new one. Not Rossy. Kei. Don’t want two Rossy. One Rossy. One Kei.’

Kei, for a second, has a ridiculous vision of Tobio in this very studio, laid out on a couch, silk sheets over his naked form, and sunlight borrowed from another country on his edges. From a country called outside.

Would he stay still? Kei thinks he would.

‘Maybe one day,’ he says. ‘But I still want to finish this one, you know.’

‘How long?’

‘A little longer. December, maybe. _De-cem-ber.’_

‘I know December,’ she says crossly. Twists around in his lap to glare up at him, lip wobbling in a pout. ‘After December? New Kei?’

Kei stares down at her, something cold plunging into the pit of his stomach. She’s lived so little that a day feels like a century. How on earth are her parents going to explain to her where he’s gone after December? How, how on earth had he not considered that before letting her into his studio?

No, he thinks, as he plays absently with her little fists. He’ll figure something out. Film videos, call her on the phone, something. But even his logic fills in the list of solutions, his gut stays cold, twisted.

‘Kei? Kei?’

‘Yes?’

‘Put me down. Wanna paint now.’

‘Yes,’ he says, straightens up. ‘Yes, let’s paint now.’

♛

That night, Tobio pokes his head around the partition, a shifty look in his eyes like he’s done something wrong or is about to. Kei puts his sketchbook away and pauses his podcast; raises an eyebrow. He’s still in his day clothes— no, actually, he’s— interest sparks. Kei puts his headphones away too, shifts to get a better look at whatever of Tobio he can see, and those…are definitely jeans. Kei’s seen him naked, sweltering, shivering, and this still feels stranger. Like he’s out of uniform. 

‘I have a bike,’ Tobio informs him. Then: ‘Hana said you were no fun today.’ 

‘I fail to see how those two statements are related, but thanks, and thanks, I guess?’ 

Tobio rolls his eyes, then steps past fully. ‘It’s not— a _bike._ It’s a Kawasaki.’ 

If Kei’s eyebrows could go any higher, they’d fly off his head. ‘You have a _motorbike.’_

‘And a spare helmet.’ 

And— Kei really must have a lot on his mind, because sarcasm comes to him faster than understanding, and all he says before turning to his sketchbook again is _well,_ _congratulations on your bike and your spare helmet,_ and it’s only after three seconds of Tobio still standing there— now with something resembling a glare on his face— that he realises, and feels warmth climb to his cheeks when he turns back around. 

‘I asked her why you weren’t fun,’ Tobio says. ‘She said maybe you wanted to play outside.’ 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **warning:** there is a heated argument in this chapter that leads to an explicit possibility of physical violence committed in anger. it doesn't happen and it's clearly stated that it never will. this is then renegotiated (mostly offscreen) and does take place, but with full consent, and on a note decidedly sexier, but not entirely separable from the conflict. 
> 
> i.e. kei gets slapped: the famous chapter.

It doesn’t become a ritual— and they already have so many of those that their entire life together is made out of them. Stacked on top of each other. In the morning when Tobio wakes up hours earlier and doesn’t make a single noise getting ready, always trying not to look at the other bed as he tiptoes past it. The short November days spent in meetings, thinking about how warm the greenhouse must be at the sunniest hour of the afternoon. The partition, a ritual of its own— never walking around it without some kind of permission. Tobio asks by wrapping his hand around its frame and then stepping past. Kei asks by knocking, twice, light with the bony bend of his long thin fingers.

It doesn’t become a ritual. It doesn’t need to. Like the only time they did it was so strange that it snuck everywhere like smoke, and clings now, like smoke. Maybe it’s because it was past midnight when Tobio held out his spare helmet to Kei. Maybe it was the witching hour, when they crept out of the house, pulling on jackets and lacing their boots, and the night was already quiet the way it gets when no one else in the world is awake. Maybe it was the full moon, Kei’s hair silver under it, hands white. Maybe the wind, strong enough to touch them when they were barely out the door. Howling past them when Tobio steered the bike into the heart of the hills like he was supposed to be looking for something. Maybe it’s that— that he should’ve tried to look for something instead of just letting the wind howl past. Should’ve found something to give Kei other than the wind. Then it wouldn’t have been a ritual either, but at least something final would’ve come out of it.

Instead, it doesn’t become a ritual, because that one single time lingers. Like moonlight, or air. Inescapable, the memory of Kei taking his helmet off almost an hour later under the porch light, staring down at his own reflection in the visor, mouth open. The way he’d handed it back to Tobio wordlessly, the _thanks_ not on his lips but in the curl of his fingers. The way Tobio never did find out what it was that day that made Hana put her hands on her hips and huff _Kei no fun today. Kei sad. Kei not here._ Maybe it lingers because that’s the thing he was supposed to be looking for. Lingers because what problem would he have found whose solution isn’t December? And if there is one, what’s the point? Kei won’t be here long enough for Tobio to suggest solutions to the rest of his life.

♕

A week after it, Kei knocks on the partition.

♕

Tobio’s seen the studio only once, before it was a studio. When they were still fixing the paneling of the ceiling and the whole place smelled of that uncanny clean dust renovations always bring. But it was daytime then, and the not-studio was filled with people, and Miwa, who had been saying something like _it’s a shame he needs a north-facing window, all he’ll see are the—_ had cut herself off when Tobio stepped in, and smiled tightly.

That was different. It was daytime then, and it’s past midnight now, and none of that north-coming light is filling the place. Instead, what Tobio sees as he follows Kei inside is the harsh white of the fixture squaring across the ceiling panels, the pale colour of it making something tighten in his chest. He almost wants to step right out again, feels like he’s not supposed to be here even though Kei’s the one who’s leading him in. Letting him in. There’s something— still, about the place, cold. Startling, like reaching out for someone’s hand and finding that it’s freezing.

It’s clean, too. Tobio doesn’t remember what idea he’d built in his head of how Kei’s studio would look, because the image before him’s erased it in seconds, but he thinks it was probably something similar. No mess of canvases or littered pages, just neat shelves lined with pieces whose white edges are the only things he can see, like thin pillars, perfectly distanced, some kind of binary code. Black wood, white canvas, black wood, white canvas. Nothing on the walls, extra supplies in glass cabinets, and the floor empty save for the easel Kei’s standing before—

Tobio understands, now, why his eyes took in the rest of the studio first. They must’ve known that he’d refuse to believe them, and had to lead him into it.

The canvas is over a metre, half a metre across. It’s the most terrifying thing in the room after the hands that painted it. A green darkness that can’t be found anywhere else, only out beyond the world, in the sweeping hills. Not green as life or green as death. Green like the dark— taking over the earth. An endless, relentless green, so that the canvas is only divided into two: whatever of it is green, and whatever isn’t.

And still that isn’t fair, he knows, to the clawed-open fruit she is holding in her hand, or to her lips. To the square of light that falls on her, making her hair come alive, her centuries-old skin brought back to life by Kei’s fingers around a paint-wet brush. It isn’t fair, but Tobio doesn’t think any of it is. Not the fact that this painting is sitting in the middle of the studio he had built for his ruby-thief husband, not the fact that Kei has been making such beautiful things all his life, and now under this roof, and Tobio wasn’t allowed to see, only know, vaguely. Know like he knows about the neighbouring existence of Andromeda, two and a half million light years away— next door. Like he knows how some of Sugawara’s flowers uncurl overnight as if fingers like Kei’s had teased them open. Like he knows the name of this painting, but it still feels like a scalpel slicing through the insides of his arms when he reads it on the sonnet in the corner.

He’s never seen so much as a scribble from Kei before— refuses to be ashamed of the way he stumbles forward to look closer, despite the little breath Kei lets out. Refuses to be scared of the iron vice around his chest at the details that materialise before him like smoke changing shapes, each grey wisp of it a distinct curl in the air before it blends into green nothingness. Into the folds of her robe. Into the waves of her hair. Into her eyes, so dark and full of something that he can’t speak out loud, because he does have enough shame for that.

Enough shame to realise that for all that Kei could’ve known Tobio was a judoka if he had just asked, Tobio could’ve known how talented Kei is if he had just asked, too. And if he could blame Kei’s apathy back then, isn’t Kei allowed to blame Tobio’s careful fear? Wasn’t Tobio saying— until tonight, when Kei cut through that fear himself— that the art on the other side wasn’t worth the risk? That what he would find on knowing Kei wasn’t worth the risk of asking to know him, because he wouldn’t get to do anything with that knowledge apart from make it last in his absence?

Enough shame to finally look away, look back at Kei, the kind and kingly ghost of him in his dark clothes and light hair and gold glasses, the bloom of his lips. Before Tobio can say _thank you_ he kisses it onto Kei’s mouth, hands holding his face so tight it must send his bones ringing. But not enough, because Kei bites back.

‘Easy, my lord,’ he murmurs, and that’s a laugh, how can he laugh, how can he? ‘Not here. This is my temple and you’re a mere guest, and all that.’

Tobio draws back, and so much burns that he doesn’t know how to tell it apart. Kei, assuming that every time Tobio touches him, it must be to scratch an itch. Proserpine piercing them with her black-dagger stare. _This is my temple, and you—_

‘Funny,’ Tobio says, and is his voice so rough because of the interrupted kiss still in his mouth, or is it because it burns? ‘And all this time I was thinking _you’re_ the guest.’

Kei goes still. Cold under the white light. And then he’s smiling— bitter. Humbled.

‘Yes,’ he says softly, like he’d forgotten the word for a second. ‘Aren’t I?’

♕

It bruises, like cruel things do. Tobio can’t say that it only takes root when he says it out loud— that’s not true, not when they know that the first tendrils of it were already stabbing the soil the day this marriage was decided, and that they started to push in earnest the night Tobio went into Miwa’s study with a plan, a deal, a compromise. So no— it doesn’t take root just because Tobio said the words out loud, breaking some unspoken rule between them— only, one of the roots whips up out of the ground, striking them both in the ribs hard enough to crack enamel, leaving them winded and ugly maroon. 

Three days pass, then five, where they slink away from each other in some kind of sinister silence that no kissing or fighting would solve. Tobio almost misses those first days as if they were years ago and not two months behind them, when it felt like getting their hands on each other was the magic solution to everything from the smallest disagreement to a night full of snide remarks from someone at a party. Kei converts back to his religion of avoiding Tobio’s gaze, but it doesn’t feel the same. Back then he was untouchable because the possibility didn’t exist in Tobio’s mind yet. Now he holds back because something has cracked like ice too cold for its own good, and only now does he realise how— how good they had it, almost, for minutes at a time. Not only when he got to slam Kei against walls and doors and destroy more than one shirt, but the moments inbetween. The gold-strike in Kei’s eyes the first time he saw Tobio come at his hands. That little chase up the stairs just before, that wasn’t a chase because they both had a million appearances to keep up. The thin thread of humour they’d managed to find that worked for them both, let them laugh together before others. Miwa’s sly eyes across the breakfast table and Akaashi’s across the bar— the anger of knowing that their marriage was still being observed, the thrill of getting to put on a twisted shadow-show, without letting anyone in. A show of a show.

Maybe if Kei was gone entirely, decided to break his end of the deal and leave early, Tobio would have the time and space to figure out if any of it was worth how it stings now that it’s gone— but as it is he’s still here, still on the other side of the partition, and there’s no forgetting him, or remembering him. Missing him, then, is out of the question. Seeing him too, apparently.

Then it’s past the stalagmite peak of November, and another root cuts clean through the mud of the gardens, bark-rough and twisted, its tip sharpened to a knifepoint for all the time it spent underground honed by their hatred.

It starts innocent enough. Another gallery event, one that they would’ve made some excuse to avoid if Kei hadn’t promised a friend six months ago that he’d make it no matter what, and if Tobio hadn’t gone along it would’ve been the third time in a row, and even this late into everything, it’s still too early for that. So he finds himself morosely working at his jaw with the razor and hissing as he almost nicks himself near the end of it. Fixes his collar and cufflinks and cologne, and only stares at the floor as he cross Kei on his way out of the bathroom. Stares at his phone in the car while Kei floors it like he’s got somewhere more important than the gallery to be, and then, finally, has a dozen other things to stare at once they’re stepping into the exhibit.

It’s not the worst evening he’s had; at least, not at first. At first he only has to smile and nod, which is something he’s been practicing since he was fifteen, and only has to listen while Kei talks to acquaintances about cultural seasons and woodwork, which is something he’s more than gotten used to in the past five months. And Kei’s too smart to slip up in public; their arms are linked sometimes, and even when they’re not, they’re both good at nodding at each other from across the room, bringing each other up in conversation. _Kei told me your daughter was planning to move to Canada— ah, yes, my husband mentioned something about a private screening—_

Then it’s nearing midnight and only four of them are left, settling down on the couches in an inner lounge and pouring out wine, loosening buttons. Tobio, who likes this part best, is on edge even as he takes his glass with a smile. Only ten days ago he would’ve been unable to keep his eyes away from Kei, his ring against the glass, the way he crosses his legs, his soft profile in the light coming through the large cream lampshades. Would’ve watched with interest as he spoke to his friends, watched his friends— Shirofuku, the star of the show still taking phone calls, midnight blue suit, the dial of her watch larger than her wrist— Bokuto whom Tobio’s only met once, wild hair and wild eyes, shirt unbuttoned, head thrown back in laughter at whatever joke Kei probably just made at someone’s expense.

Tobio feels out of place like he hasn’t in months, and this time it’s not just awkward, it’s anxious. Bokuto’s open nature, that Tobio found warm and inspiring last time, makes him nervous, the way he leans forward to slap Kei’s thigh every five minutes. But worse are Kei and Shirofuku— when she finally stuffs her phone between two couch cushions with a curse and turns to him— the easy laughter between them, the memories they keep bringing up of art school and some assistant they both would’ve died for, who ended up transferring after only a year, leaving them both heartbroken.Something about some nude model who had such a terrible tattoo job on his back that Kei ended up correcting it in his sketches and got told off for half an hour. He colours up to his ears when Bokuto brings that one up, flips him off, but the wine makes his case weak and he flops back on the armchair and laughs too.

No, Tobio feels like he’s intruding. If it wasn’t for him, sticking out like a sore thumb in a Gucci suit, all of them could easily stay awake until four in the morning like his own parents and Kei’s parents used to do when they were children. But instead Tobio is here, the husband, the weight, and sooner or later Kei’ll sigh and look at his watch, then raise an eyebrow at him as if to say _I assume you’re just about dying by now_. Funny how Tobio can only count the times he’s done that now. Late to the party of appreciating all the little concessions Kei makes for him. Late to the party of realising— that concessions are all they’ve ever been. It’s easy to be nice when you know you don’t have to do it for long, after all.

His phone buzzes thrice, then goes still in his pocket. That’s his father’s code for _call me if you’re not driving_ , so Tobio fishes it out and mutters a quick excuse to the others before stepping out into the hall. It’s still lit just as bright, but eerily empty, and even the fall of his boots echoes on the marble floor.

‘Dad?’

‘Oh, good, you’re awake.’ His father’s voice is light and alert; he probably just stepped out of a meeting at a hotel that ran on too long, and will ask the driver to stop at the nearest convenience store and pick up something Tobio’s mother definitely wouldn’t want him to eat. ‘Miwa wouldn’t pick up. Do you remember the records we were going over last week—?’

He does, and if his father would let him speak for a second he’d be able to pinpoint the exact location of it in the shelves and even on what folder they’d stopped, but clearly the file is just an excuse, a lead-in to ten minutes of ranting about how unnecessary the meeting was, punctuated only once by _yes, the sesame one, please_ which, despite himself, does make Tobio smile. So he leans against a tall table housing an equally tall vase, and stares at the nails on his left hand while the ramble continues, saying _ah, is that so_ when needed.

Just when he thinks he’s heard the last of it, the lounge door opens, and Tobio straightens up— it’s Kei, his coat on, and Tobio’s draped over his arm, the scarf carefully folded. He walks down the hall without looking up from his own phone, and only stops when he’s right next to Tobio, as if to say _well, let’s get moving_.

And Tobio could tell his father he’ll call back in a minute, but in that very moment, the idea of having to do that is too much. Because Kei still hasn’t looked up from his phone but his face is blank, and whatever it is, Tobio doesn’t want to have it out here in this echoing hallway, and he doesn’t want to explain to his father— who’s never really cared about his schedule— why he suddenly has to cut a call at one in the morning. So he takes the coat Kei’s holding out to him on his own arm, and follows him down the hallway to the exit, the freezing night air, and the car, all while listening to the all-important and unmissable details of the residential complex someone is planning to build on the riverfront, because it’s the only thing that should matter to him in the world.

♕

The ride back makes him want to jump out of the car and walk home. He manages to cut the call five minutes in, which leaves them an hour of sitting in jittery silence because saying a word to each other in front of the driver is unthinkable. Tobio doesn’t have enough fingers to count the pairs of eyes that have been on them this evening, and it’ll be the last straw if he has to pretend in front of one more person. So he swallows the nerves but they come back up, in the form of anger, resentment, the kind that only surfaces a day after a fight when it’s too late to retort. He realises that he was forced to make the call between brushing off his father and saying goodnight to the others, doesn’t even know what Kei said to them to have gone from being on their first bottle to leaving, so fast. Did he blame it on Tobio? Say something joking and apologetic and bitter like _that’s my husband, always fielding phone calls, you know how it is, better get going?_ Did he relax when Tobio left the room? Look around and say _I guess that’s my cue to go, I’ll stay longer next time?_ What does he say about Tobio when he’s alone with those who understand him?

The car door slams; the front door doesn’t. The bedroom door doesn’t slam; the bathroom door does. Tobio kicks off his shoes in some kind of childish fury, throws his coat on the bed, never mind his heavy pockets. Wants to ball his scarf up and stick it in his mouth, scream into it, but settles for throwing it on the bed too, then picking it up and throwing it again. Silk makes no noise against silk except a kind of rustling that feels like one more pair of eyes is laughing at him.

He doesn’t wait for Kei to breathe when he comes back out of the bathroom, already in his pyjamas, a hint of kohl still under his eyes, one end smudged out towards his temple like he scrubbed it off with the heel of his hand.

‘What was that about?’ Tobio asks, striding forward to the partition. His teeth are hurting with how hard he’s been gritting them. ‘I’m not good enough to say goodbye to your friends personally?’

Kei blinks at him, and for a split-second, Tobio thinks he sees surprise. Then scorn takes over, and Kei sneers.

‘Oh, pardon me,’ he says. ‘Here I was, thinking I’d spare you the ordeal of all that— but I’ve made a _faux pas,_ is that it? Now everyone’s going to whisper about Kageyama-san who’s too busy to say goodbye before leaving—‘

‘Stop it,’ Tobio snarls. ‘There’s just no fucking way to win with you, is there?’

‘No, there isn’t,’ Kei replies. He sounds like it cost him nothing to say that, like he’s been waiting to say it all along. ‘You should’ve known that before accepting my lowly self into your hallowed household.’

Tobio is going to break something. Has to fight every living instinct in his body not to slam a fist on the partition because that’s not how he wants to be heard, especially not by Kei, who’ll only chalk it up to another win for himself, because there isn’t any winning with him. No, Tobio will play on his court, with his rules, only with honesty, because he never learned— in a lifetime of politics— to twist words. His or others’.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says lowly, then looks up. ‘But you’re not allowed to do this. You’re not allowed to spit on us like you’re an outsider— like we’re your overlords when you know— you fucking _know_ — what all of this is about. You’re not allowed to pretend that I’m the only one here who wanted for nothing growing up when you had the best of everything, too.’

Kei is stone-faced, and Tobio won’t wait for him to come up with something just yet.

‘You did,’ he continues. ‘And if my family is better at hiding where our money comes from than yours, that’s not my fucking fault. If having it easier now reminds you of when you didn’t, that’s not my fault, and _you’re_ not allowed to pretend you come from outside any of this—‘

‘No, I’m not,’ Kei cuts in. Tobio realises, late, that he doesn’t have his glasses on— Tobio can look right into the red-hot coals of his pupils. ‘No, I’m not allowed to pretend, and no, it’s not your fault that my family are the fanciest criminals this country’s ever seen, or that yours are the most legitimate ones.’

Tobio’s chest clenches and seizes, fury trapped in his throat.

‘But congratulations,’ he goes on, and a corner of his lips is lifting again, and Tobio hates it— ‘Congratulations on assuming— like every other person who’s ever met me— that _I_ chose to be born here. That any of this is any more _my_ fault than it’s yours. Because that’s right, isn’t it? You didn’t choose your perfect family, but surely I must’ve chosen my high-end fraudsters. That’s how it works, right? It’s not like I would give all of this up in a second—’ _Fuck,_ Tobio thinks, hands going cold as he sees Kei’s throat work. _And why was Kei sad?_ He remembers.

_Maybe wanna play outside?_

‘Anyway,’ Kei says. ‘I left because Shirofuku and Bokuto had forgotten they were meeting up with some others back at the hotel and we had to wrap up quickly.’ Shame, stupid, sinking like a stone, especially when Kei looks back up, eyes blazing. ‘I told her you loved the mirror installation, because I know you did, and because you’d never tell her yourself. She was happy.’

‘I’m—‘

‘Save it.’ He smiles again, something softer and meaner, and Tobio’s gut churns, yet another misunderstanding swallowed. Left feet on left feet. ‘At least I got to hear what you really think. And— before you ever accuse me of getting you wrong again— I hope you’ll remember this.’ Meaner still. ‘That you thought I was the fucking devil for grabbing your coat for you. That I’m not the only one here searching for—’

‘No,’ Tobio breathes, and before he knows it his hands are fisted in Kei’s soft collar and his head is filled with the too-sweet smell of rosehip. Kei tips his head back and exhales at the ceiling; it sounds like a laugh even as he stumbles back just a little to keep his balance, even as Tobio’s fingers tighten. The noise of the scent is too loud for him to feel regret yet— there’s no place for regret or even reflection. He doesn’t know what he’s doing or what he wants to do—

‘Do it,’ Kei whispers. ‘Hit me. You want to. I want you to.’

Tobio lets go of him, palms on fire. Mouth filling with salt and spit. Shoulders going cold.

‘No,’ he repeats, lies, confesses, whichever. Doesn’t want know if he wanted it before Kei put words to it, but knows anyway, anger and arousal and something else crossing wires until he can’t see straight, says it again: ’No. Not like this. Look at me.’

Kei refuses to look. Tobio raises a hand, takes his chin between finger and thumb, tips his head down by force until their foreheads are touching, nosebridges pressing together. Until each of Tobio’s ragged breaths is hitting Kei’s own controlled ones.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says, and he is, and he doesn’t need Kei to be, or to forgive him. Remorse is forgiveness enough. ‘Sorry.’

‘You treat your guests awfully.’

Tobio screws his eyes shut, laughs, harsh and loud. ‘I guess I do.’ Moves his hand so he’s cupping the back of Kei’s neck, nails scratching at the curls over his nape. ‘I won’t talk like that again if you won’t either. We’re not fighting like that again.’

‘No, we aren’t,’ comes the reply. ‘There’s hardly any time for it.’

♕

‘I wasn’t joking,’ he says later that night, from his side of the partition and without knocking, like he knows Tobio’s awake too though they didn’t so much as kiss each other— or because they didn’t. Voice contemplative like the entire evening and the past ten days didn’t happen. Maybe he’s right, there’s no time for regret. ‘I wouldn’t be opposed to a particularly vicious judo hit to the face one of these days.’

‘Judo,’ Tobio says weakly after choking on his breath, ‘is not about hitting. Or faces.’

‘Well, that’s a shame. Maybe just an old-fashioned slap, then. I could rile you up again if you wanted. I have lots of opinions about your taste in films.’

‘You really want me to hit you.’

‘Without all those rings you wear, though. Rings could shatter faces, and I’m rather fond of mine.’

The shorter the days get, the sharper. Tobio accepts the most surreal resolution to an argument that he’s ever had, and turns his lamp off instead of replying to Kei, then turns it on again.

‘I’ll never act when I’m angry,’ he says, and he means that, too. ‘That’s not what any of this is about.’

‘You could’ve convinced a spectator otherwise.’

♕

And he does mean it. He learns, as November gets ready to bridge into December, that not wanting to do wrong by Kei, and wanting to do just about anything for him, are not the same. They overlap like stalks, or vines creeping up the side of the house. But they don’t run parallel, and they’re not the same plant. Not the same flowers. Morning glory is Kei ordering sugary cocktails and pulling faces at the horrors that Akaashi and Hoshiumi drink straight-faced. Midnight glory whatever it is that Tobio’s been turning over and over in his head for the past three days, as if the only thought that deserves to be on his waking mind is remembering how Kei pronounced _shatter_ and _aim,_ something strange.

On the last night of November Tobio’s mother hosts a dinner just because she can, and just because _they_ can, Tobio and Kei sneak away with their friends in tow not a minute after the plates have been cleared. It’s Tobio’s first time monopolising the study for drinks and music, and he feels giddy over it, like he used to when he was five years old and stepped into his father’s too-large shoes, trying to walk around in them, raising his legs high so that the boots wouldn’t fall off his feet. Or fifteen, in his uniform at a real match with an audience. Whatever it is, he’s the lightest he’s felt since that night in the studio, and though he has to tell himself not to think about what the end of November means, two drinks in it doesn’t even need forgetting anymore.

The study is warm, full of carpets and couches, and little lamps that are useless for any real reading. In their dark orange wash, Yamaguchi is trying to find some movie trailer he’s too tipsy to remember the name of, and Tobio gives it about thirty more seconds before Hinata snatches the keyboard from him and puts the music back on. Yachi and Kei are going over something on her phone— they always are— but one of Kei’s hands is so close to Tobio’s thigh on the couch that he feels like he could do just about anything in the world.

The feeling makes no sense, but he doesn’t need it to, to hold onto it with both hands. It’s been a fortnight since they last kissed and Tobio’s gone months longer than that without, but a day in this country is a decade, and he feels like he could do just about anything in the world— and then, just about anything to have Kei’s hand a thread closer. Including— almost— almost— taking it.

He’s wearing three rings tonight, four counting his left hand. Kei is only wearing the one. Tobio imagines fitting his mouth around it, then looks away, and finds other things to think about until the last of the cars pulls out of the driveway and they have to admit defeat and get to bed.

It’s late. Hinata gives up the guest bed to Yachi and Yamaguchi, waving them off with _I know where the futons are, I’ll be upstairs in ten,_ and Tobio’s the last to leave the study, making sure everything’s clean. By the time he’s done the entire house is quiet, suddenly twice its size, cold despite the heaters. He’s glad to step into the bedroom, smaller and warmer. And fuller.

Kei’s sitting on the edge of his bed, and he makes a picture. He’s traded his slacks and shirt for those black silks he loves so much, but the shawl he’d folded into a rectangle around his neck is open over his shoulders now, black cashmere threaded through with gold, so much of it, so soft; it’s like he’s wearing the night itself, or fireflies stolen from the gardens. There’s whiskey-colour on his cheeks and his eyes are bright, but Tobio knows he’s sober, just— a little more present than he usually dares to be.

Tobio likes him present. Likes him firefly thief. Would do just about anything for him, if only so that a month from now at the end of the year and at the end of this, he can look back and think _I’d have done anything. I did everything._

‘Sit back,’ he says. ‘Against the pillows.’

‘No prelude?’ But Kei moves up the bed, eyes not moving off Tobio’s as he settles against the pillows, as Tobio follows him, knees bracketing hips, hands on the headboard. As Tobio looks down at him, the cage-country he fits in so perfectly, its metal so malleable he can move as he wants, but melded so close he’ll never get out.

Kei doesn’t say please. He says _do it_ with the high angle of his chin and the way his teeth are clenched even though they shouldn’t be; he says _do it_ when he takes his glasses off and his hands don’t shake. He says _do it_ when he leans his head back against the pillows, then, remembering himself, leans it forward again. The lamps of the room are doing strange things tonight: passing through and reflecting off the green glass of the partition that takes up half their lives, layering eerie shadows on Kei’s face so that his eyes aren’t so much amber as something much colder. Like panthers in forests, or living, hungry water.

Kei says _do it_ without saying it, and the skin that tightens around his throat when he swallows is green and luminous and terrifying, a painting one hides in black wood.

Tobio takes a deep breath, and slowly twists his rings off. Lets them fall to the bed one by one, soundless but not weightless; the heaviest things in the world.

 _You don’t aim for it,_ Kei had said, three nights ago. _Aim past it._

 _Don’t aim for me,_ he says, with the way his head comes away from the pillows, the way his hungry-water eyes fix on Tobio, the way he relaxes his jaw. _Aim past me._

Tobio looks at him. He looks back. _Do it. Do it. Do it—_

Kei says, ‘Please.’

Tobio breathes in the green air and the shadows of their room, and swings a blow to his face. It has his head turning into the pillows, eyes watering in shock, the breath knocked out of him by Tobio’s fingers, flat and tight and perfect. He makes a sound when he exhales, something stunned and primal, before closing his eyes.

Tobio’s hand is on fire. It travels through his body like wicked lightning, climbs to his head like smoke, rears its head and roars when Kei opens his eyes again, and smiles.

 _Again,_ he says, with the tilt of his head, locking eyes with Tobio. Then, with his voice. ‘Again.’

Tobio brings his hand back, harnesses all of the world’s gravity for this one arc of muscle-bone meeting muscle-bone— Kei breathes in so deep his chest heaves— and then lets it fall. Surges forward to kiss Kei, instead.

♕

‘Time,’ Hinata wheezes, crosses his hands. ‘You’re not focusing, gonna fucking kill me.’

Tobio stops, straightens up, and just that makes his head whirl so fast that he almost falls over backwards. Hinata catches him in time with a hand fisted in his shirt, keeps him in place while Tobio steadies himself.

It isn’t every day that Hinata admits— well, not defeat. Whatever it is, it doesn’t happen often, because despite the difference in their heights, or maybe because of it, Hinata’s the only one who can handle him, keep going bout after bout without giving up or even resting. They’ve both been told off for it a thousand times by their coaches, and they’ve never listened. So Tobio listens, because if Hinata said it, he meant it, and he doesn’t want to cause an injury.

Hinata goes down on the mat with a relieved groan, and then, of all things, he’s smiling up at Tobio.

‘There you are, though,’ he says. ‘I was wondering where you were all these months. It was like talking to a ghost.’

Tobio should really get water for them both, but he goes down too, instead, careful on his knees and heels, thighs burning at the stretch. ‘I don’t—’

‘Don’t pretend.’ Hinata stretches his arms, makes a stupid sound. ‘Every time I brought up the doujou you’d go white as a sheet. Like you wanted to pretend the calendar didn’t go past December.’

‘Watch it,’ Tobio growls.

Hinata grins, points at him, eyebrows raised. ‘And then that happened today. Now you’re not scared, you’re just mad. If it’s at me, fuck you, I did nothing. But I don’t mind. Still a step up.’

He lowers his arm when Tobio says nothing, and— it doesn’t happen every day either— his eyes go soft. ‘You know what you should do?’

‘What?’

‘Go away.’ He laughs at Tobio’s glare, leans forward, flicks him on the forehead. ‘No, I really mean it. Your dad’s going out of town, right? Go with him. Take a breather. Think things over. And have a trial run.’

‘A trial run of what,’ Tobio asks, but he already knows the answer, and he wishes he hadn’t met up with Hinata today, hadn’t pummelled him into the ground, had just nipped this in the bud— but then again, Hinata always says what he wants to, one way or another. It might as well be right now.

So it doesn’t surprise Tobio when he goes right for it, shrugging and saying, ‘For the calendar after December. It’s like— visiting the next year for a few days, checking out the place, you know? See how you like it.’

‘Does it matter how I like it?’ It slips out before he can stop himself, and worse, every word of it makes his voice strain. Because it doesn’t matter— he’ll be going to the next year whether he likes it or not. Or rather, the new year is coming, whether he likes it or not. Maybe there’s a difference when he puts it that way. Something about choice. ‘Besides, I’ll just be— losing time.’

‘Maybe,’ Hinata says. ‘Though I guess if you already think that, you don’t have much thinking left to do, huh? You already know.’

 _Funny. And all this time I was thinking_ you’re _the guest._

Tobio blinks at the mat, at its chrome yellow foam, then looks slowly up at Hinata, throat so dry he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to make a sound. He really should’ve gotten that water.

But as it turns out, he doesn’t need to speak. Because Hinata’s taking a deep breath, and shaking his head.

‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘I know. It’s all over your stupid face.’ He says it again, _your stupid fucking face,_ only now he’s dragging Tobio forward into his chest, grabbing fistfuls of his hair and tugging, and that doesn’t happen every day either. ‘You’ve always been so stupid.’


	8. Chapter 8

Akiteru calls him on the first day of December, early enough in the day that Kei knows it must have been listed on his calendar. Of course it would— it’s the second-most important day of the year, after the wedding. It’ll be pushed down to third place when the year ends.

Kei’s in the mood to humour him, plays dumb for just long enough for him to ease into it. Talks while he sorts through clementines and grapes— he’s making Hana do still life today— about the week Shirofuku spent in Tokyo, and how Akaashi’s flying down to Singapore for something or the other, which Kei knows is an excuse to escape the cold. By the time he’s gotten to recounting exactly what Tadashi did on a delivery run last Saturday, Akiteru’s laughing genuinely, and not that horrible nervous thing he does when he’s the one made to talk to Kei for important decisions. Like marriages.

‘Did you call for something?’ Kei asks, at a perfect pause. He knows the answer, just doesn’t know how it’ll be presented to him.

Akiteru breathes deep before replying. ‘A couple from Gokayama got in touch with Akane. Their daughter’s moving and they can spare her room, but it’s smaller than the one—‘

‘Doesn’t matter,’ Kei cuts in. Steps back to squint at his modest arrangement, then steps forward to fix it again. The banana looks absolutely miserable with its giant dark spot, and knowing her, she’ll throw a fit if she decides it’s sick or something. He turns it over, but the upwards arch of it just looks ridiculous.

A pause. ‘All right. I haven’t had Akane ask for the details of the—’

‘Doesn’t matter.’ Kei does away with the banana altogether, and reaches for a much greener one from the basket. The colours are hideous, but then again, Hana has always harboured little respect for what colour things are supposed to be. Kei can make all the effort he wants; he’s probably going to end up with a dripping-wet paper full of opals and sapphires.

Akiteru laughs, and this time, it sounds businesslike again. ‘Well, then. You didn’t want to stay in Takayama proper, you won’t have to. Unless you’ve changed your mind altogether.’

He stops, fingers tightening on a grape, breaking it away from the stem accidentally. Lifts it, twirls it in the feeble winter sunlight, its dusty mauve-maroon not catching any. His throat is too tight even to ask _what?_

‘You did say something about Hokkaido,’ Akiteru continues, then, and Kei— exhales. Doesn’t know what he expected. ‘So, the room works for you?’

Kei doesn’t feel like humouring him anymore. Pops the grape in his mouth and chews as slowly as he can, makes one final call on the arrangement. Good enough.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ he replies, which, in their family, has always been taken for yes.

♛

It’s the last time he sees Hana, though neither of them is informed of this in advance, which is, of course, for the best. Kei, by dint of being the adult, isn’t spared altogether, or even for long: minutes after she scampers out of his arms, chasing Sugawara outside into bare woods, her mother steps into the greenhouse, petite and beautiful in her white coat and grey boots, and a small, sad smile on her face. Kei almost knows before she says anything— puts his sketchbook away, and straightens up, ready to bow, shake her hand, anything.

‘We’re going up north for Christmas,’ Kaori says, extending a hand to trail over some flower Kei can’t recognise despite having seen it every single day since he’s been here. ‘There’s still two weeks before we leave, but I figured I’d get her excited about packing and presents, you know? I think that’ll keep her mind off things.’

Kei nods. It isn’t that he can’t speak; he just has nothing to say. He has packing and presents to take care of too, and she knows that. Everyone knows that, it seems, by the hush that has fallen over the house overnight. Small smiles, still hands, a silent agreement that they’d all been on since the beginning, it seems.

‘Thank you,’ she continues. Kei’s next breath comes a little harder, but he nods again anyway. The tip of her nose is red from the cold, eyes bright from it, too. ‘I wish I could promise you that she’ll never forget, but…’

‘She will,’ he fills in. That, he knows. ‘That’s all right. As long as she—’ _Remembers what I taught her. Remembers the paints. Remembers the stars._ ‘I do have a request, if it’s not too much trouble.’

Outside, Hana shrieks like a little animal, and Sugawara’s laugh comes chiming through. The sun catches on a soap-streaked pane and then Kei’s eyes, warm and buttery gold, and so beautiful that it draws water out, as if by birthright. Kei’s breath catches, too, on some pane in his chest, rattling the frame.

Hana barely comes up to his knees, but her grip on her brushes is baby-feral, little nails always stained with paint. She tilts her head just so when passionately filling in the outlines with pastels, of things Kei quickly sketches for her in between colour-mixing and cleaning. Elephants, and foxes, and balloons. Her hair is a glossy little bob on her round face. Button nose and bunny teeth and wide, demanding eyes. One day she’ll go to primary school and middle school and high school, and fill sketchbooks with dress designs and charcoals of her crushes and perspective practice, and she might smoke cigarettes and cry, and change her mind about art and become an engineer, or a tennis player, or a librarian. 

For now her bright pink scarf waves behind her like a windswept flag, and the garden is as far as her visible world stretches. Kei is a fixture in it.

‘Please,’ he says, ‘will you send me pictures of her art?’ 

Kaori’s own voice is steady, and of course it is; parents say goodbye a hundred times, to the children their children used to be last night, the week before, and when they were born. ‘I will.’

♛

He does have packing and presents to take care of. Enough of his things are still at his parents’ house that he doesn’t need to stuff more than a single bag with clothes. The rest of it is only sketchbooks and supplies. He doesn’t know yet what he’s going to do with the studio, because every time he thinks about it— steps into it— walks past it— something cold curls in his stomach, like the uncanny chill of walking past a graveyard, even in broad daylight. So he doesn’t think about it, trusts it to be taken care of anyway, the way it was promised to him. Logistics would be smooth, he’d been promised, and arguments would be nonexistent.

Tobio’s pulled away on a weeklong trip to Osaka, while Miwa’s the one who stays behind for once. Kei keeps running into her wherever he goes— in the hallway leading to his studio, in the kitchen late in the afternoon to sneak a bite of whatever he finds in the fridge, in the study when he’s trying to read old, familiar, boring books to calm the flutter that lives in his ribcage all day now. She never says anything, only nods in that companionable way she’s had ever since— since, well, Kei doesn’t know when, actually— but there’s a pending conversation, one they’ll have to have. Her mother knows, too, he’s sure; maybe by the end of the trip, her father will know too. Maybe when he comes back he won’t give Kei the time of the day anymore, only stare him down, or smile tightly, or— he doesn’t know. It all seemed so far away back when it was proposed to him, when the people in this house weren’t real people, only characters from a country in the future, faint-edged and voiceless. Now Tobio’s mother doesn’t ask him what he’s planning to do on the weekend over breakfast, and Miwa doesn’t crack jokes, as if the punchline can only land when everyone is together. When Tobio and Kei are married.

The room has been rented under the Tsukishima name. He has all the details in his phone now, and two or three pictures. He hasn’t looked at them yet.

The house without Tobio is surreal, which it wouldn’t have been if they had given up after those first disastrous days. Now the bedroom feels strange though Kei’s always slept alone; the studio feels empty though he’s always painted alone. Tobio’s gym is pale and cold, the roof too far away when Kei lies down in the middle of the mat, staring up.

Being in the greenhouse fills him with a panic, sometimes, as if, if he suddenly whirled around and asked Sugawara where Tobio was, he would frown and reply _Tobio who?_ As if, if Kei spent long enough glaring at himself in the mirror, Tobio’s things would disappear from the right side of the counter. His hand gel. His aftershave. His cufflinks. Each one vanishing for each day of December passed, until Kei is standing alone, a guest in a stranger’s house, white marble and perfect polished glass and one little lamp. Nothing to remember anything by, apart from sketches of flowers and hands, and a portrait that he abandoned before starting, for pride.

♛

The sun rises its slowest on Tobio’s birthday, and Kei puts the last strokes on Proserpine.

He lies awake for half that longest night, turning sides, looking out of the blinds he left open only to darkness. And even when it arrives the sun is only half there, some sort of offence taken to how long it had to wait.

He’s coming back in the evening. Kei knew that, but he’s reminded anyway when he steps downstairs for breakfast and finds Miwa on the phone with Hinata in some sort of petty argument about what food should be made for dinner. Miwa is saying something about some kind of curry that he always loves, and Hinata has— in true Hinata fashion— some outlandish suggestion, something about ordering in, from what Kei gathers by the phrases Miwa repeats incredulously. It must be to make up for the fact that none of Tobio’s friends are in town for festivities, because Hinata sounds even louder and more indignant than usual on the other line.

Kei thinks back to shortcake and coffee, then turns back to his oats.

He spends the day in the studio, having to switch on the lights at noon because winter isn’t helpful at all. His hands are still freezing from the gardens outside, so he sits on the stool and wraps them around his mug of tea, waiting for his fingers to warm back up to usefulness. In the meantime, he stares, and she stares back.

Finishing a painting has never been monumental for Kei. Starting one, yes, maybe— but never the end. Oils are so slow, and he always finds ways to make them even slower, so that months later when the frame has all but been emblazoned into his mind, every single line and fill on the canvas is so familiar that there is no transformation when he’s finished. A painting is never _done_ anyway; only stopped. Deciding to stop doing something has never been an event in his life.

She is not finished, then, only stopped. Released from his perfectionist hands; _there, I’ve done all that I wanted to with you._ It might not be monumental, but it _is_ beautiful, and— usually— satisfying, especially coming back weeks later for the varnish.

Kei feels no satisfaction as he works on the final details, switching between brushes and trays, no music beating in his ears for once, only winter-silence. He doesn’t feel hollow or hurt, but there is a grey sort of wash in the place in his heart where completion usually lies. But years of making art have taught Kei to push past dissatisfaction and work, and trust his hands when his eyes fail him. So he thinks nothing of it, or tries to, and bites his own lip as he works on her blood-red ones.

The room is under the Tsukishima name. Kei doesn’t know who else knows about it; he’s only told Akaashi, not even Tadashi or Hitoka. Maybe his parents know now— maybe that’s why they haven’t called in days. There is only one person whose ignorance Kei can be sure of. Whose not-knowing he can trust. Only one person who will never have a way to come see him, and will never look for one.

The sun sets, or stops setting, or is finished setting, just as he drops the brush on the last stroke, and just as the gate opens to let the car in. And Kei, who knew today was the day, who stayed up half the night, still finds his hands going numb, heart a fist in his chest, one that doesn’t stop punching— he hears the engine die, hears the car door open. Nearly pushes his stool over with how fast he stands up, nearly slams the door of the studio behind him. The walls of the hallway are a blur to him, the carpet an endless road under him as he skips stairs on the way down, foot nearly catching on one of them as he arrives at the final landing before the two curving flights that lead to the living room, coming to a stumbling stop at the inner balcony just as the front door opens.

Tobio steps in, and he looks right up at Kei, as if he had somehow seen him already. And Kei can’t tell what he’s thinking from those inky eyes of his, if he’s as ridiculously breathless and relieved, as if he’d also— somehow— magically— forgotten Kei and not forgotten him, all in a week’s time, like some sort of cruel joke. He doesn’t know what Tobio’s thinking when he stares up at Kei like that, right up at him, so stunning and present and, for a second, his.

He doesn’t know.

And he doesn’t know until he’s already left Proserpine behind, her haunting, wanting stare on the door, that it’s the last time he’ll see her. That, too, he thinks, is for the best.

♛

That night they don’t say a word. Only then does Kei realise how often they talked about this, how often they talked about everything. That not speaking the same language didn’t mean, after all, that they weren’t _speaking._ Remembers, only in this silence of silences, all the times they would say sharp and white-hot things to each other, the times Kei would cry out loud when his arm was twisted too far, and not in a good way; the way he would wrench it free from Tobio’s grasp and hit him lightly on the chest, glaring, saying _I still have use for it, you know._ The way Tobio would correct his posture in the gym, a familiar, possessive impatience to his instructions, as if he was close enough to Kei now to forego politeness and insist on performance. Close enough to Kei to slide up behind him and adjust his arms, the bend of his elbows, breath a wash of mint and want down the side of his face until all Kei had to do was lean back, eyes closed and mouth open. 

All Kei has to do is lean back and closes his eyes. Tobio wraps an arm around his waist the moment they’re inside the room, one hand closing the door behind them, the other one splaying over the fluttering pulse inside Kei’s ribcage, thumb fitting into the dip of his sternum, teeth scraping over the back of his neck. He closes his eyes; Tobio kisses his shoulder through silk and wool; he leans back; Tobio slides the other arm around him, tightening his hold until Kei feels he’s going to break.

The bed is only two strides away; they’re still winded by the time they fall on it, or Kei more than Tobio, who still has enough steel in his limbs to push Kei up the sheets, enough give in his fingers to work at Kei’s clothes. All Kei can do is watch, until he can’t even do that anymore; can’t look at Tobio’s supernatural concentration, his dark eyes, for fear of accidentally memorising them. His hands, so warm and large, perfect fingernails trailing down Kei’s chest, stomach, thighs. His mouth, so warm, and then blazing hot where it fits over Kei’s own, closing chaste and slow over his lower lip, then opening again to breathe for him. Him, all of him, clothed dark and soft while Kei lies completely naked under him, skin erupting into gooseflesh wherever they touch, in shock, and wherever they don’t, in protest.

In protest Kei says nothing. All he can do is close his eyes as he hears Tobio taking his shirt off, his belt. The drawer, then the lights, the room going dark and then dim golden through his eyelids; the hot press of skin on skin, the hot press of Tobio’s fingers, and not even a laugh at how Kei is always ready, always greedy, sinister and practical in his desires. Kei has been sinister and practical today; Tobio is impractical anyway, and all Kei can do is take it; close his eyes at the wave of anxious pleasure that rises in his chest with each curl of Tobio’s fingers inside him, his own hands curling into the sheets in protest. Legs coming up over Tobio’s shoulders, thighs trembling, hips rising off the bed until an arm comes to hold them down. Until he’s as close to begging as he’s ever been, and without words; and Kei without words is Kei defenceless. All he can do is open his eyes, lashes tangled and heavy, and gasp, at what, he doesn’t know.

At Tobio pushing into him finally, at the perfect lines of his form, upright and tense, the green-gold tandem between the lamp and the jade painting him otherworldly, supernatural. Sinister and impractical. At the hand Tobio raises to run through his own hair, eyes closed, mouth open in a silent moan when he bottoms out; at the glint of the ring. At that first sound, drawn out from deep inside both of them, when he starts to move. Not slow as if he means to tease nor frantic like they sometimes are; it’s somehow both, somehow already that final climb to the edge, only endless this time, relentless. All Kei can do is give in to the sweet infinite burn of it, hand tight around his length, chest tight around his breath. An urgency washes constantly over them both, then recedes to their feet, never gone, only waiting.

It’s like nothing Kei’s ever felt before; there is nothing he can compare it to. Neither the physicality of it— of Tobio, bare and deep inside him; of the way Kei’s chest has already broken out into orgasm-sweat, clammy and out of his control; of the branding grips that are Tobio’s hands, tight as vices around his hipbones— nor whatever lies under. Not in his most starved of moods have Kei’s breaths ever been so ragged, finally a dialect they both speak. Not at his strongest has Tobio ever— taken him like this, fucked him with such intent. Like it was his plan all along to make words lose meaning, and hence, purpose.

Words lose meaning; there aren’t any for Kei to explain, even to himself, the strange, keening, sobbing sort of release that’s creeping up on him. One he can only tamp down by gritting his teeth and not letting a single sound escape his throat as he realises— he realises. There aren’t any, when Tobio, as if coming to the same realisation, suddenly bends down, parallel now, to lift Kei slightly off the bed, to hold him tight and close; hiding his face in Kei’s shoulder, biting down keep himself quiet.

There are no words for something that obvious, after all. No words to say that after all these nights, this is the one that feels like consummation.

There are no words. All Tobio can do is lift his head, kissing hungrily up the line of Kei’s throat to his jaw, the corner of his mouth, then his lips. All he can do is move a hand back down to Kei’s hips, holding him in place as his thrusts turn arrhythmic, Kei’s own hand desperate on himself. All Tobio can do is tighten his hold around Kei in warning.

And then all Kei can do is finally raise his other arm to wrap it around his husband’s heaving back, hand tangling in his hair to ground him as he comes, a sound so long and jagged clawing out of Tobio’s throat that it makes the hair on Kei’s arms rise. All Kei can do is close his eyes, and arch off the bed and into Tobio’s chest, and come, too.

♛

There are no words, so Tobio doesn’t use any to keep Kei in his bed. Simply, Kei feels a hand close around his wrist when he sits up, already shivering at the loss of heat, and his eyes close again.

It’s all he can do, he reasons, to lie back down and break a rule for the first and last time.

♛

On the thirtieth, Kei stops before the door to Miwa’s bedroom. It’s the closest he’s ever stepped to it, and his throat is tight with nerves, but he couldn’t gather to courage to speak to her earlier in the day when she was in the study, where he knew he would at least be seen going in and coming out, no matter how private their conversation.

It’s nearly midnight; no one in their right mind would expect him to go see her right now, and Tobio’s taken to staying out long enough to get away with sleeping in the guest bedroom. (If he thinks he’s doing it stealthily, Kei isn’t going to take that small comfort from him.) So he takes a deep breath, and, with no way of hearing if she’s awake beyond the door or not, knocks.

It takes long enough that he starts to reconsider; at best she’s asleep, at worst she somehow knows it’s him and refuses to open up. But then the lock is turning twice, and she opens the door just enough to squint out into the hallway, then blinks, and opens it all the way.

‘Hi,’ she says blankly. She has a hair mask on, its shiny thickness catching her nightlights, and her reading glasses have a smudge on them. Her oversized T-shirt doesn’t lend to the fierce lawyer image either, and yet this is the most scared Kei’s been of her. ‘Kei. Hey. Come on in. Sorry, it’s a fucking mess—’

‘No, please,’ he says, bows before stepping inside. It _is_ a mess, a holy one, and despite himself he has to swallow a smile. She has a work station set up in bed, papers in different piles, at least three mugs on her nightstand and a thermos on the other one, and— he strains to hear— yes, that’s indie rock playing from her laptop speakers. He’s trying so hard to identify the band that he almost misses her one-sided tirade about archive trips and interns and oh, she should rinse out a couple of the mugs, though the tea tastes like shit.

‘Sit,’ she says finally, when the mugs have been rinsed and are freshly steaming with the shitty tea. Kei pulls up the armchair she’s gesturing to, and settles down, takes the mug. It’s warm. So is her voice when she crosses her legs on the bed and adds, ‘Tell me.’

Kei stares down at the mug— white with some kind of citrus pattern— at the translucent tea inside it. The slightest movement makes the circle of its surface quiver, shift. He tries not to move.

‘How can I make this smoother?’ he asks. And it’s a little late to be asking that when he had all this time to negotiate with a level head, and maybe she’s going to think it took him all this time to decide that he didn’t want to be a nuisance. He doesn’t have it in him to try and convince her otherwise, so he’ll have to live with tarnishing whatever impression she has of him a little further. ‘I— I’m assuming all of it has been laid out already.’

She doesn’t reply for so long that he has to look up. She’s watching him over her own mug, her eyes strange and wry, the same shape as Tobio’s but not the same ink. No, there’s something almost amused in her gaze, and then she quirks her lips, and they look rueful.

‘That particular outcome’s been laid out, yes,’ she says, setting her tea on the nightstand. ‘I know Akiteru’s been in touch about most of it, but I was going to fill you in on the rest tomorrow. There’s only one thing, anyway.’

‘I’m listening.’ Actually, he’s not. ‘Actually— I just wanted to say, before you start, that—’ That. ‘That— I really do want to make this easier on everyone. I know it sounds empty, but—’

‘It doesn’t.’ Miwa picks the mug back up, takes a sip, winces, then smiles again. ‘It doesn’t sound empty. You don’t owe it to us to make it easy, but you still want to.’

Kei blinks at her. She isn’t being sarcastic, he knows, and that’s why he’s bewildered. _You don’t owe it to us._ The fact that she can say that earnestly, with a straight face, when Kei’s the one— when he was always the one to—

‘Has Tobio told you about his and Hinata’s super ultimate top secret dream project?’ she asks, then, and Kei swallows hard, shakes his head. ‘They were maybe twenty when they came up with it, but they only started taking it seriously a couple of years ago, when they both retired.’ She takes a deep breath, then huffs a fond laugh. ‘Well, _retire_ is one way to put it. You don’t really retire from a sport, do you? Unless your body tells you _stop, you bastard.’_ Kei snorts at that, and she looks up, eyebrows raised, smiling. ‘They both just— decided they wanted to do other things with judo than win medals, go figure. You should’ve seen Tobio when he was at his demon peak. He ate medals for breakfast and belts for dinner.’

She looks back down. ‘Anyway— they want to open up a doujou, only Tobio won’t bring it up before dad and dad won’t let me do the talking for him. Says Tobio needs to learn to develop a project and pitch it himself.’ Looks up just in time to catch Kei’s smile, and squawks. ‘Hey! I know our father’s a lot, okay? Be thankful you never saw—’ Catches herself, but it already sounds like _be thankful you’re already leaving. Be thankful Tobio never got around to telling you what he wants to do with his life._ ‘Anyway— fuck, sorry, I’m all over the place, not very lawyer-like of me. I didn’t expect you to come here in the middle of the night. And I can’t stop staring. Your socks are mismatched.’

Kei blinks at her, each of her sentences more absurd than the last, until the final one hits him with a surreally perfect aim, and he looks down slowly to remark that his socks are, indeed, mismatched. One is black and one is grey, the difference so stark against the perfect white carpet of Miwa’s floor. He hasn’t the faintest idea how it could have come to be.

The laugh that flees him is so loud and ungraceful that for a second he doesn’t realise it came from him. But it did, and out it comes again, so sudden and strong he has to scramble to put the mug away before he spills the tea. That does Miwa in, she sets her own tea down and bursts into open giggles, and then Kei’s leaning his face into one too-warm hand, shaking his head and laughing, and laughing and laughing. Even past the lump in his throat, and just as well, because who knows what he’d end up saying if he wasn’t laughing. _I don’t—_

‘We’ll miss you,’ Miwa says simply. ‘When he manages to open up his doujou, you’ll have to attend the inauguration.’

Kei takes a deep breath, then one more, then one more. He’s still leaning awkwardly to the side, the wooden end of the armrest digging into his ribs, his stupid socked feet. If, he theorises with a certain detachment— if he were to breathe out right now and cry: he would then be crying in his sister-in-law’s bedroom, souring the deal they had made, the one they will so gracefully uphold, as if out of respect for its clemency, its genius.

‘I will,’ he replies. With dignity.

♛

Because certain things are never easy, the new year will be ushered in at the Kageyama estate, with fifty guests and not a single camera; and then, because Kei refuses to make this one first— last— thing easy, he will leave the estate cutting right through those fifty guests, an hour past midnight when no one can fault him for it. When most will assume he’s gone upstairs to bed, or, should someone catch him, the sight of a car leaving will be nothing unusual.

He wakes up on the last day of the year before the sun, despite having stayed up until three in the morning speaking with Miwa. He feels the heavy tug of sleep on his eyes, the ache of exhaustion, then of anxiety, then— he sits up, rubs at his eyes, clicks his lamp on. Steps away from his bed and towards the partition soundlessly, though there’s no logical reason he should be quiet, until there is, because he was right.

Tobio is asleep in his own bed, thick covers drawn up to his chest, an arm folded under his head, the other on top of it, hands clasped. He’s facing the partition, curled a little into himself, hair falling over his forehead. Perfectly peaceful, since he isn’t awake to see the way Kei’s fingers tighten on the engraved edge of the shade, hard enough to leave prints on his skin. He must be exhausted; this is the first time Kei’s awake before him, and he can hear the faintest rustle of activity from the gardens too; half the house, then, is awake while Tobio sleeps.

He must need it, to make it to midnight. Kei leaves him, gathers his things as quietly as he can before heading to the guest bathroom.

♛

The day goes by in a flurry of activity. As if to reassure him, none of it is so much as tinged with melancholy, not even on Miwa’s part, or their mother’s. Even their father is back at the breakfast table, a sight that had grown rare over the months, and he looks up from his tablet to give Kei a genuine smile, if not the longest one.

‘Come, sit,’ he says, patting the space right beside him. ‘The ladies won’t be gracing us today, but Kunimi might be here soon. I told him to sneak some Swiss rolls from the caterers, so if he doesn’t show up we’ll presume him killed in action.’

It’s possibly the most Kei’s ever been spoken to by him, in such an informal capacity at least. He must be in an exceptionally good mood, one that not even the imminent departure of his son-in-law can dampen. Maybe he doesn’t know, Kei thinks a little wildly, or maybe this has been laid out so perfectly that he’s known about it all along, man of conversation that he is, only with the right people. All those discussions their two pairs of parents have so late into the night with whiskey and seventies’ jazz music must sometimes, if only by accident, come around to their children, after all. Or maybe he’s just learned of it, but it doesn’t matter, because it’s his job to put on his best face, one that he’s paid very, very well for.

So Kei sits beside him and eats his breakfast and drinks his coffee, and when Kunimi shows up with a plate of Swiss rolls, he eats those too. They’re soft and sweet, a treat for a special day, and he lets their sugar fill him with energy. He doesn’t need it for anything; his bags have been packed for two days now, his studio locked from the outside without a check, his tickets printed and folded in his satchel. This time tomorrow the year will have turned pages. This time tomorrow he will be afar away.

♛

This time last year, Kei hadn’t learned of what was in store for him yet. The party was at his house, then, and the Kageyamas were there too; the older ones, that is, with— if he remembers— a fleeting sight of Miwa, and none of Tobio. Back then Kei had been too occupied with throwing cinnamon tequila down his throat, on the rooftop of his bright city mansion while his parents played poker downstairs. Surrounded by similar buildings, similar parties, little portable heaters dotting the place even though barely a handful of them were sober enough to handle such proximity to fire. Kei remembers Akaashi shrieking and pulling him back from one when it started to singe the trailing ends of his scarf. It was freezing, subzero. Kei’s hands were numb even in his leather gloves, and Hitoka was an angelic distributor of heat packs, nose red, eyes closed in mirth, Tadashi tailing her, a much less angelic distributor of shots. Kyoutani was opening beers bottles with his teeth, spitting the caps out and grinning despite the bleeding cut he was already sporting on his lip, and Kei had found it the most hysterical thing in the world, he remembers. Laughed himself hoarse, juvenile, loud. Bit Akaashi’s ear, then his nose, then his jaw, still laughing. And when they ran out of orange juice, he had gone downstairs, singing and swaying belligerently, walking right past his in-laws without realising it. The only thing that mattered was getting more orange juice.

His parents aren’t in town this year. He doesn’t want to know where they are, knows, as always, that they’ve sent Akiteru to do the hard work for them— the work Kei’s mother is too busy to do, that his father is too gentle to do. Akiteru is the perfect mix of them both, then: all of their mother’s steely sense, all of their father’s soft smiles. Akiteru arrives early, greeting Kei in the gardens before sundown, and will stay behind at the party after Kei’s gone, cracking jokes and slipping into every other conversation that his brother’s turned in early, that he was feeling under the weather, what a shame. No, he’s the perfect son— all Kei inherited was his father’s silence and his mother’s hands, and some divine will not to do anything brave with either of those.

So while Kei does nothing, Akiteru will have the car loaded with his things, have it ready outside the gate past one, someone trustworthy from their staff at the wheel. Akane herself, maybe, or Koganegawa. If it’s Akane she’ll drive in silence, with maybe one biting comment about having to miss her own new year’s eve celebration for this, designed to make Kei laugh. If it’s Koganegawa he’ll talk Kei’s ears off about whatever the hell happened at the Paris auctions this time, how he really thought he was in for it and he wasn’t even in the room, just waiting outside trying not to sweat. He’ll pass Kei a mint, or a protein bar, or something else from the confectionery he always seems to carry on himself, often joking that it’s the only reason Akiteru pays him a salary. Yes, he’ll joke, and Kei will lean back and screw his eyes shut, focusing on the sound of the wheels on the highway.

He still has four hours before he can do that; spends half of one dressing up, the slowest he’s ever been though he’d decided on his clothes a week ago. No, he has appearances to keep up: not the airs he puts on at galleries, but something stronger and muter both. The dark grey of his suit will go well with whatever black thing Tobio has probably picked out, and the scarf, his mother had told him when she pressed it into his hands before the wedding, brings out the colour of his skin and eyes. Pale rose cashmere threaded through with gold, a little too fragile for winter, maybe, but something that would be at home in the snow anyway.

Kei wraps it carefully around his neck, tucks its edges into his jacket. He doesn’t see what it brings out, but it must do something, because when he crosses Tobio on the threshold of the bedroom, he looks like it’s the first time he’s seeing Kei.

♛

It feels like it’s the first time Kei’s seeing him, too. Or hearing him. He’s gotten so used to holding conversations— long before the wedding, too— that at some point all talk blended into the same white noise, with only a few people standing out, the ones he actually felt like talking to, listening to. Like those very first twelve hours with Akaashi, when Kei was so enraptured that he had let his coffee go cold, so shameless his open fascination with every single word that came out of Akaashi’s mouth. Like those long talks with Akiteru, the way Kei wanted to know absolutely everything about what his brother thought of the world, and of art, and of games and food and movies.

He doesn’t blame himself entirely, then, for never registering what it’s really like to make small talk with the politicians around him, with Tobio at his side. It had immediately slipped, after that first day at the gallery, into the same zone of radio static that the rest of these public conversations were in. Asking after children, talking about travel. The occasional remark, falsely modest, from someone who had said something or the other to this judge about that case, how, in his humble opinion, the jury should have— the agreement, of course, always.

Kei, all these months (all his life) had only registered whatever of it he needed to mock, but tonight he listens. He listens to the way Tobio greets his father’s acquaintances, how his voice changes, turns just a little quieter, more strained. How he listens carefully and always takes a few seconds before responding, like he still hasn’t perfected the art of this down to instinct. Not like Miwa, who is such a smooth talker that she bests even Akiteru, her edge being the straightforward way she expresses herself, unlike Akiteru, who likes to hide his intentions by talking in subtle circles. Not like Kei, either, who’s honed his silence so that it’s an agent of conversation itself. Pointed silence, polite silence, pensive silence; letting the other person fill in the gaps with whatever suits them.

No— Tobio is a little clumsy, off-beat, but always earnest, like he genuinely wants to believe whatever he’s saying. It must be endearing to the older wolves of the party, an edge of its own, but all Kei can think about is what Miwa said last night about him not speaking to his father about what he really wants to do. He wonders when was the last time Tobio spoke to anyone at all about it. Wonders, after all these months, what he said when he was told about the engagement. Did he protest, like Kei? Throw things, like Kei? Did they expect him to— were they only waiting for him to, to call it off? Has Kei just been waiting for him, too?

He doesn’t know. Tobio’s arm, whenever he dares to take it during the evening, is stiff, like that very first time they let the rest of the world see them together. It occurs to Kei that he might not know his husband after all, which is a fine occurrence for three hours before they take their bows and turn back to strangers. Still Tobio leads him around the party, pushes plates of sweets just slightly towards him when they sit down to eat with Hinata and Sugawara, shifting the candles so that they aren’t too close to Kei’s hands. They’re quiet while the others laugh, and though Kei can see through both Sugawara’s jokes and Hinata’s smile, he appreciates it. Appreciates that everyone here is so good with appearances, including him. Appreciates the sweets, and the candles, and the piano floating into all the corridors, one of Miwa’s favourite melodies.

He appreciates, even, being called to the centre of the living room ten minutes before midnight, as champagne bottles and flutes are readied and the hall fills with tipsy laughter— appreciates that he gets to be included until the very last minute, accorded attention and respect and family, and name. If everyone here is at least half a criminal, Kei still fell into the hands of the most honourable ones. Miwa finally leaves the piano behind, grabbing the champagne from Akiteru with a playful glare, making a show of flexing her arms. Tobio’s father is holding onto a bottle too, brandishing it jokingly at the one Tobio has. The lights are dimming now, only the sconces, and no fireworks, thank God. Kei feels a laughable mix of feelings rise to the surface of his chest. Instinctual lightness, everyone’s merrymaking infectious, but every synapse of it followed by panic, its starving jaws snapping at the tail of his smile. Kei’s wrists ache with anxiety, mouth dry, heart beginning to thunder as someone yells _thirty seconds to go._

Thirty, then twenty. Kei looks at the golden hand of his watch, then up at the golden ceiling, then out the open door at the midnight darkness of the gardens, the world getting ready to turn itself inside out, a two-sided shawl dotted with fireflies and flowers. Kei’s heart, turning itself inside out as the countdown starts, as Tobio twists his hand around the cork, and Kei knows his timing will be perfect, because that’s who Tobio is— Kei knows it, as five trickles down to four, three, two, one—

It is. The bottle pops open, two others following it with a split-second delay, and joy rains down on everyone. Kei is caught in the spray, laughing in shock, then laughing harder at Hinata’s whoop as he grabs the bottle and makes off with it. For an instant Kei feels such a part of everything; everything. His laugh catches wet and thick in his throat, then lodges there as Tobio reaches out, and, as if in a trance, wipes a streak of foam off his cheekbone.

♛

Tobio walks him to the gate.

He’s the only one, and it can only have been personal design— Miwa looks more surprised to see him in the doorway of the kitchen than Kei feels, but she quickly looks away, and back at Kei, resuming her goodbyes. It’s the only place they can do it; he’d slipped in here fifteen minutes ago, knowing that inevitably, they would follow, one by one. Tobio’s father was the first, under pretence of fishing a bottle out from the wine rack, one that he put away on the counter before placing his hands on Kei’s shoulders and smiling at him, nearly as tall, and at his least— hence most— intimidating.

 _Now you keep in touch,_ he’d said, sober and serious. _And son, know that you two aren’t the first, or the last, to choose this. It’s not as terrible as you think._

Something about his voice had convinced Kei, if only for a second, that this wasn’t the worst, most absurd night he’d ever lived since he got married. Something about his wife’s smile when she came in minutes later, under pretence of getting the bottle he had forgotten on the counter. Something about her soft eyes, all-knowing and forgiving, and the way she said nothing at all on her way in and out.

‘Well,’ Miwa says. ‘Send a postcard? A fridge magnet?’

Kei snorts, nods. ‘I remember the rules. I’ll stay in touch.’

Her eyes soften, too. ‘They’re not rules, Kei. But whatever makes you remember to do it, yes. Now go before I do something compromising like crying.’

She’s joking, he knows; there is no way someone like him could’ve built a single memory sweet enough to be missed. So he bows one last time and turns away without a word, and looks neither at her nor at Tobio as he steps out the back door, into the freezing chill of the gardens.

The walk is long; the estate is grand. The house is only a part of it, even lit up and festive as it is, music following them into the shrubs, garlands of lamps making of it the only visible thing for metres around. The garden lights are on too, but not as bright. Only bright enough for Kei to see how Tobio’s scarf is out of place, a near-black green triangle of it slipping out of his collar. He’s staring at the ground as he walks, hands clasped behind his back, nothing that Kei can identify on his face. His own hands are freezing; the way he keeps worrying at their dry, red skin with his thumbs doesn’t help. The way he keeps worrying at his lower lip doesn’t help; sooner or later he’s going to taste iron on it, or salt.

‘Did you have a good night?’ Tobio asks. Even out in the empty dark, his voice is too quiet, something sonorous missing from it.

Kei tries to come up with a witty answer, fails. Tries to come up with an answer, fails, the same urgency from the countdown gripping him again, like lava rising in his throat. He has the sudden need, with some calm, tunnelled logic, to stop, put his hands on Tobio’s cold face, kiss the soul out of him. He knows not to trust that need, like he should’ve known, maybe, not to trust his other needs.

‘I did,’ he replies, finally. The poles of the lamps are gathering now, pointing to the last stretch of stone that will take them to the main gate. He can’t see the car or hear it; it must be parked just by the side. His lungs seize a little, then let go. ‘Did you?’

Tobio shrugs. Looks up, then, and— the cold outside is cruel to him, too, then; his face is pale, lips and nose a touch too red, eyes champagne-bright, maybe, the lashes framing them frozen in slender, curving triangles; dark, so dark, the ink of them. Kei wonders what Tobio’s seeing for his face to look like that. Like—

Tobio smiles. ‘I can finally have the counter to myself again. None of your weird little perfumes.’

Kei blinks at him, then scoffs despite whatever beast is clawing at his throat. ‘Says you, you have a whole pharmacy in there. And excuse _me_ for unpacking. I paid rent, you know. Fetched a precious, handsome d—’

Tobio bursts into laughter, and it turns into a wet cough that he has to muffle into his elbow. He turns away from Kei, whispering _sorry,_ and by the time he turns back they’re almost by the gate, and his eyes are brighter than ever. Bright, and— the sound of the car starting up makes them both startle, then still— the orange flood of the headlights, the lamps by the gate, the deep dark sky.

‘You did,’ Tobio says, then, so softly that Kei almost misses it. ‘My turn now.’

There’s no one manning the gate; it must be design, too, so that Tobio can open it himself, pull it inwards, wider than it needs to be. Kei stands in the middle of that open space where metal was only seconds ago, and stares back at Tobio, framed by that metal, its perfect parallel lines on either side of him like wings, or a cage, or prison bars, and all the green of the world behind him.

His eyes are bright, and beautiful. His smile is so perfect it’s almost divine, like he has access to some secret Kei will never know.

‘Go,’ Tobio whispers, from the threshold, and Kei realises. It’s happiness, the unearthly light on his face.

_My turn now._

He’s happy— relieved— content. Proud that he gets to give Kei what he wants most: freedom, that most precious of dowries.


	9. Chapter 9

On the first day of January, it snows.

Tobio wakes up in his bed, before the sun, and the light in the room feels strange. It scares him for a second, then terrifies him, and in a second he’s sitting up, head spinning from how fast he did it. And he’s right— the clock tells him it’s only four in the morning, only three hours since, but the room is lit weird, purple and grey, and he can see all of it, when he’s so used to finding his way around in pitch darkness.

Then he realises— the blinds are open. All the way on the other side of the partition, the only window in the room, Tobio having forgotten what daylight felt like directly hitting his bed— when he makes his way past, yes, they’re open. The window is closed or he’d have frozen otherwise, but the blinds are open, and it’s already snowed enough to cover the entire garden. The sky is red and purple but dull, like someone threw a blanket over the earth, then turned on a coloured lamp. Even without opening the window he knows there must be that silence outside, the one that only comes in the thick of winter, with the snow.

It doesn’t surprise him. The bed beside the window is empty, perfectly made. His is cold.

♕

The second time he wakes up, it’s not snowing anymore. None of it has melted, though, and he can see it through every window as he goes downstairs for the first breakfast of the year, always a special affair in his mother’s kitchen. Sure enough she’s at the counter herself, sleeves rolled up and thickest slippers on, draining rice noodles and instructing Kamiya-san on the soup, something about shallots, or ginger, or something else. Tobio turns away from her before she can notice him, and goes out to sit at the table, lays his head on his folded arms, the cold edge of a plate touching his elbow.

He wakes up a third time to Miwa’s voice. ‘I’m not one for violence, but she was _really_ trying me last night. I wanted to wax her stupid eyebrows off.’

Laughter— Tobio frowns, raises his head— ‘I think they were tattooed on. Honest to—’

Akiteru stops short as he catches Tobio’s eye. For a second they all freeze. Miwa fresh from her shower, hair still wet, last night’s makeup not gone yet. Akiteru, cheeks red, scarf and gloves on— he must’ve just arrived, then. Tobio, dressed in his Sunday best for the first day of the year, eyes still burning.

‘Tobio,’ Miwa says finally. ‘You’re up. Good morning.’

For a second Tobio wants to laugh at the terrified look on both their faces. It’s the same one they were wearing back in July. He wants to make it last, their discomfort, when last night he’d been so nice to them— gone right upstairs after closing the gate, not stopping for a single person, though no one tried to stop him anyway.

But just as quick as it came, it leaves him, and he nods. ‘Mom’s making breakfast.’

‘Yeah.’ Miwa pulls out a chair, nods to Akiteru, who pulls out the opposite one. She folds her arms next to Tobio, tilts her head, lips pursed. ‘Hey—’

‘Tobio-kun.’

Tobio turns away from her, looks across the table right into Akiteru’s eyes. They aren’t the same. They’re narrower, darker.

‘Thank you,’ Akiteru says. It sounds like an apology. Tobio doesn’t want to accept either. ‘Thank you for taking care of him.’

His eyes are narrower and darker, but just as honest. Tobio looks at him, the tense way he’s sitting, hands joined like he’s about to raise them, apologise again. Tobio thinks about the bed upstairs, the open blinds, about the studio and the sketchbooks, the greenhouse. About the phone calls that only came in once a week, about how Tobio’s only met their parents, _his_ in-laws, four, five times, about all the nights Akiteru would stay late in the study with Miwa, signing handovers and wire transfers.

‘Why didn’t you?’ he asks.

Akiteru blinks. ‘I— pardon?’

‘Where were you last night?’ Tobio asks. ‘Did you talk to him?’

Miwa tenses next to him, straightens up, but Akiteru doesn’t. He sighs, clears his throat. ‘I don’t think he—’

‘You could’ve made it easier.’ Tobio doesn’t want breakfast anymore. Pushes his chair back and stands up. ‘He needed you. Not just last night.’ He doesn’t want to fight, either. Would’ve said this three months ago if someone had given him the chance— but maybe he should’ve taken it. The chance. By force, if he had to, so that he could deserve the thanks he just got. ‘All along. You could’ve made it easier.’

‘That’s what you think,’ Akiteru says finally. His voice has gone quiet. ‘You think it would’ve been easier— would it, really? What use would it have been to create that ease only for it to go to waste six months later?’

The silence is ice. Out of the corner of his eye Tobio sees Miwa pass a hand over her eyes. It’s her tell for when someone says something they shouldn’t have, he’s seen her do it at him all his life. He doesn’t know whom it’s for this time. Doesn’t know whom she agrees with. Doesn’t matter, because she could’ve taken a dozen chances too, and she didn’t, which makes both of them the same— all three of them, actually.

Because even as Tobio readies his last retort, he knows he’s a liar for it, when he’s the reason they’re here in the first place. Says it anyway, because there’s nothing to lose.

‘Waste,’ he says, the word bitter in his mouth. ‘That’s right. It would’ve gone to waste six months later, after all. You’d already decided. You really didn’t have any faith in us from the beginning. None of you did.’

‘Tobio,’ Miwa says, in a tone he’s never heard, because she’s never heard him angry.

But Akiteru beats her to it again.

‘Why?’ he asks, in that same quiet voice. ‘Did _you?’_

♕

Months ago, high up on a rooftop over the mirror of Tokyo Bay, Tobio had looked down at a cornered animal, and decided that he didn’t have the luxury of things like faith.

♕

Snow, once fallen, is still. Tobio’s lived in it a quarter of his life, another quarter in the warm summer sun, and then half of it in the rain that always cloaks this part of the country. Rain is never still. It’s never done falling, even after it’s stopped. Puddles shine and splash and squeak, and drops cling to windowpanes and hair and the edges of umbrellas like reminders of the shower that just passed, ready to fall at the slightest shake. Rain makes noise, however loud or soft. The pitter-patter of an afternoon flash, the rumbling roar of an hour-long storm.

Snow is silent. It can come down in sheets and sheets without a sound, and sink into the ground under footfalls with just the slightest whisper. Seeing it fall outside his window has always felt like time has suddenly lost itself, the world gone quiet.

The world goes quiet outside Tobio’s window. On the second day he folds the partition shut to let the light in properly. It takes him ten minutes and it doesn’t fold flat, only rests against the wall like it’ll spring open again, or tip over with its own weight that was never made to be bunched up like this. He leaves it there anyway.

On the fourth day he finally goes back to the gym, ending his week off with an hour of running that he would’ve done outside if not for all the white coating the gardens.

On the sixth day he takes his paperwork downstairs to the study, and stares at the carpet as Miwa wordlessly makes place for him, giving him back his desk that she’d taken over with her three hundred mugs and pulp fiction. He doesn’t expect to work well here, just better than in the bed where the daylight he’d forgotten the feeling of keeps throwing him off, but it helps anyway. Miwa nibbles on food every hour and it’s distracting, but it resets his brain, brings it back from the greenhouse.

On the eighth day he goes to the greenhouse. It’s scary to see the snow piling up, even though it happens every year, and every year the heated gutters take care of it. Still— he doesn’t think he’s ever bothered to visit the greenhouses at this time of the year. It might just be the first time he’s seeing the sloped roof like this, the white on it so clean and bright that it feels fake. He thinks he’d remember if he’d seen it like this before. Knows he’ll remember because he doesn’t plan to come see it again. There’s nothing like winter, after all, to remind you how horrible greenhouses really are. How stubborn the life in them. How deliberate.

♕

Miwa had promised him that nothing would really change— that six months was around the time people would start to forget the wedding anyway. That weddings were never important in others’ lives, only in yours, and on paper, where they counted. That they would only ask once or twice at gatherings, then leave it alone, one more open secret to add to the pile.

Tobio just— wishes she had been wrong about it. Wishes he had to spend all of January fielding phone calls and making excuses, avoiding pointed glances and whispers or whatever he’d made up in his mind when he thought Miwa would be wrong about it, when he thought he’d be the perfect son, stoic and smooth, knowing just how to handle this.

Wishes she’d been wrong, maybe, because then he’d be able to share it. The absence. With whoever would throw him a bone and ask.

Instead he has no phone calls to field, no one to bother him, least of all his friends and family. Atsumu calls, trying to convince him to come down for a weekend, and Hinata and Hoshiumi even manage to drag him out into the city a fortnight in, pulling him through the streets of Ginza, laughing and shrieking like teenagers but never talking about it. He lets himself be pulled. Wakes up early the next morning to get a workout in anyway and the next, and the next.

On the eighteenth day Tobio collapses on his centre mat, wheezing and wincing at a stitch in his side, cursing up at the ceiling. He’s dripping with sweat that’ll be the death of him if he doesn’t get into a warm shower ten minutes from now, and everything that can hurt, hurts. Downstairs the stupid vacuum cleaner starts up, like a noisy old engine, and he laughs breathlessly into the foam under his face.

On the twentieth day he takes his bike out into the hills, the first time he’s ever done it in this season. There’s no snow on the road, of course, and what’s on the side has started to melt in wait for the next one, but it’s still gorgeous and alien. And so freezing that he has to cut himself short, get back home in under half an hour, all but groaning when the hot spray of the shower hits him, and then groaning, loud and funny, as he sinks into the bath. Then going quiet as he turns his head to face the counter.

♕

He wishes Miwa had been wrong, and that someone would acknowledge the absence instead of stepping carefully around it like it was a puddle of rainwater. Because it isn’t. It isn’t rain. It’s snow. It’s white and quiet and everywhere. Because Tobio wants to share it with someone just the way he’d say _look, it’s snowing,_ if he were to suddenly notice it from the window.

 _Look, it’s snowing,_ Tobio wants to say. _It’s winter._

Instead, on the thirty-first day, he climbs up to the third floor and stands before the door to the studio, staring at it for so long that he almost forgets noticing that the key is in the lock. Just hanging there, its steel winking in the light of the sconces, such an easy entrance.

All he has to do is reach out and turn the key, and he knows he can, knows it would never have been left here otherwise. Knows no one else would dare.

No one else will dare, so he turns the key, unlocks the door, pushes it open.

The studio is a different world in daylight, in bright sunny, snowy sunlight. Everything Tobio thought it would be when he was having it made, everything it wasn’t the one single time he was allowed in. And she is still here, right where she was, her colours so different for winter.

Tobio goes to stand before her, but doesn’t look for longer than a second. Instead he lowers his gaze to the little station next to the easel. The brushes, the paint on the palette, still gleaming wetly. The steel scrapers piled next to it.

He sits on the stool, carefully as if he might break it, and looks up at her from there. Imagines painting, raises his hands to follow the motions. Doesn’t dare to lift a brush out of place, only follows the curves of her with poised fingers, pretending. Only manages to get as far as three waves of her hair before he realises how stupid it is, and lets his arm drop. It could never be like the real thing anyway.

Tobio imagines listening to music here. Piano. EDM. The echoes of Hana’s laughter, the sounds of the house. Maybe that’s why no one acknowledges it— what do you say after a guest leaves? Nothing. You tidy the room. It feels strange and empty the first few days, and then that feeling leaves, too, because you start to remember the natural order of things, which was interrupted by them. Spring, summer. Fall. Winter.

 _It’s the natural order of things,_ Tobio wants to say. The partition has been folded up to make place for the sun. Whatever has to make its way home, has made its way home. Birds going south, rivers slowing to rest. Kei, wide-eyed and spring-faced beyond the open gate at midnight, realising only a second before leaving, that Tobio is in love with him.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May (1909), John William Waterhouse.](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/Waterhouse-gather_ye_rosebuds-1909.jpg)
> 
> [gokayama.](https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e5950.html) logistical liberties have been taken re: kei's stay, which i hope you will excuse. it's my educated guess that a person of his standing would be able to get away with a stay like this anyway.

By February, the Watanabes have adopted Kei, and he is already halfway through _Gather Ye Rosebuds,_ and he hardly knows which one to be more, or less, surprised at.

Watanabe Shigeru is sixty years old. Watanabe Youko is fifty-five. Neither of them looks like it— Shigeru’s hair, while steel grey, is secure on his head and even longer than Kei’s, so that he has to wear a headband whenever he’s scrubbing dishes or driving, and his muscles are cut from years of work, skin still taut and tan, grin disarmingly bright. Youko wears her own greys in a bun at the base of her neck, always a pen sticking out of it for noting down phone numbers, signing for delivery, and poking Shigeru at the nape of his neck when she wants his attention. Both have warm, booming voices and greet every guest at the farmhouse with laughter, and both wake up so early it should be illegal. But they’re quiet then, in the mornings; the only reason Kei knows when they wake up is because he sometimes hasn’t gone to bed when he hears them getting the fire started downstairs. It’s a ritual of its own, the fire, in these prayer-hand houses that could so easily burn for all that their structure is strong enough to withstand the snowfall that assaults this part of Toyama.

 _You see,_ Shigeru had told him on the very first night, when Kei only had the wits about him to introduce himself and say nothing else, _this place is so old and lonely that it always needs a living soul. Not dead ones, living ones, hardworking people with strong arms, to take care of it. You know the government watches us? No, I don’t mean all that crap about them recording your phone calls, no, no. I mean they watch us— they make sure we’re looking after this place. And they’re right to do so. A place like this needs a manual. Now do take that watch off and come warm your hands, young man. Your fingertips will fall off otherwise._

In the mornings, there is a moment— brief and golden— when the sun warms the fog just enough, and, lightened, it lifts: Kei catches a glimpse of Hakusan, so far away it might as well be a postcard, yet close enough to get to in an afternoon if he wants. He doesn’t plan to; never did— only came to Gokayama for the prayer-hand houses, the snow, and the incredible liberty of no one caring who on earth he is.

Akiteru had thought otherwise, when Kei had spoken to him about it last summer. _I don’t know— if anonymity is what you’re looking for, you’re not going to get it in a village with a thousand people. You’ll literally be the talk of town. The mysterious young lodger and all that._

 _I don’t think so,_ Kei had replied. _I think they have other things to do with their time._ (And besides, he hadn’t added, the rumours he might spark would be infinitely better than reality anyway. Kei would rather be an heir in exile than Tsukishima Kei. Rather a foreigner than Kageyama Kei.)

He was right— no one cares. There was perhaps a tipping point in the middle of January, when the baker down the street laughed, said _you again, young mister,_ when Kei stepped in through the door, brushing snow off his shoulders and shuddering in the warmth of the little room, already trying to get a look at what had just come out of the oven. _Long holiday you’re taking, and in all this cold, too. Don’t mind me asking, though, my son always says I pry too much. Mom, you’re the reason all those small-village clichés exist, and all that. I tell him busybodies exist everywhere, the ones in Tokyo are just too proud to show it. You’ll take the buns, then, as usual? Let me wrap them up. Now if you’re planning on staying longer, you need to buy a hat. No one’s too handsome for a hat. You’re going to freeze your ears off._

That was the only time someone brought it up. Kei had made an effort to answer, too, mumbled _I’m not on holiday actually, I’m— renting. Working on a project._ And she had taken it in stride, as much as she would have, he suspects, if he had said _I’m leaving tonight,_ or _I’m on the run from the law._ On the other hand, if he had refused the buns and asked for something else instead, he thinks it would’ve caught her attention.

♛

The only window in his room is narrow, but spans most of the wall, a perfect rectangular slit with a sill thick enough to pose paints and paintbrushes and mugs on. It doesn’t face north but that doesn’t matter; the snow never melts, and the white of it gives consistent light in every direction. That might be one of the reasons _Gather Ye Rosebuds_ is going so fast: Kei only had to sit down on the third day, after unpacking properly and getting used to the dimensions and give and sounds of his little wooden room, to see the way the light fell on the empty canvas, and feel a tug in his wrists that meant that work would be happening. Constant work, tireless in a good way, one he hadn’t felt in too long. And so he wasn’t surprised when he kept it up the next day, and the next, and the next; isn’t surprised that it’s still going. Putting aside his phone and laptop, pretending the internet connection is as lamentable as a romantic would want it to be this far out into the country, even though Youko is a Netflix aficionado and Shigeru’s favourite thing to do on weekends is to video call their daughter and make loving jabs at whatever she’s cooking for dinner.

Kei pretends. To himself, that his phone can’t catch a signal out here in the mountains. To them, that he had warned all his friends and family that he would be on a complete sabbatical, that it was _an artist thing,_ which is their favourite thing to tease him about, and has become the perfect escape for anything and everything that might accidentally come up. It isn’t that they pry; it’s that Kei carries so many secrets— or just one, but a big enough one— that there’s no telling which question will hit home.

 _Looks like it’s an artist thing,_ Shigeru had told him, eyes crinkling up with his smile, when he said he didn’t need the wifi password. _You want to go off the grid and all that. Maybe you’ll get into writing letters._

 _It’s an artist thing,_ Shigeru told Youko when she asked why Kei prefers wine over sake, especially when the country’s best brewery is right down the street. _They like to be pretentious. Now sake, that’s not pretentious. That’s just Japanese._

 _But it’s good,_ she’d retorted, genuinely puzzled, as if she couldn’t fathom why anything would be more important than drinking good sake. Turned to Kei, eyebrows furrowed. _What on earth do they teach at school these days? This is what they teach you in Paris or London or wherever? To drink piss and look pretty? Shigeru, you put that knife down when you’re laughing— there, you’ve done it now. Go wash it._

In the beginning, Kei had felt like any other tourist. They had treated him like one all day too, Shigeru helping him with his bag even though Kei could’ve done it himself, Youko bringing him a cup of tea as he ambled uncertainly in the squared-off little table that served as a reception area. His room was the smallest but it was by no means _small,_ she’d assured him, hands nervous as if she expected him to throw a fit, and he’d reconsidered his stupid black turtleneck and trench coat then, so clearly an outsider that he was a parody of himself. Bowed low and thanked her, said he’d seen it and loved it, and as long as he could set his station up, nothing else mattered.

 _Ah yes, your secretary, was it, I think— she did ask me about natural light. I told her we’ve got_ that _in spades, we sell it bottled and all._ It was her first joke, a twinkle in her eyes, and Kei had given in easily and snorted, and in a second the ice had been broken, and she took the lead in that way people her age often do, no longer afraid of hurting a young one’s feelings. _Now, you must tell me, Tsukishima-kun— oh, Kei-kun, is it— are you really a painter? My God, you do look the type. Come down to the countryside to paint some mountains, have you? We might have some in the back._

♛

By February they have adopted him, though it’s a feat. Kei, by definition, has never been a talker— a thinker of a great many words, yes, but never one to say them out loud. On paper, at best, with the brackets of academia aligning his thoughts and filtering any potential pathos out. No— at his friendliest he still doesn’t make conversation, so it _is_ a feat that the most talkative couple in all of Nanto still takes him in anyway. A feat on whose part, he doesn’t quite know.

Renting full-time is not the same as paying for a guest room; he participates in just about everything, even though they never ask him to. The first week went by with Kei going out for dinner every night and eating pork buns for lunch, and then one evening there was a knock on his door and Youko was standing in the hallway with a tray full of steaming food, and a pointed, motherly look in her eyes, and the next day, when he brought the tray downstairs, he marched it all the way to the sink and rolled up his sleeves, turning the water on without a word. She didn’t protest, though his ears were steaming from the realisation that he hadn’t asked permission before barging into her kitchen. Maybe that’s why she didn’t say a word, only passed him a dish rag and carried on crushing garlic.

Shigeru is more reluctant to let Kei help around the house, but only because he thinks Kei doesn’t know how to do a single thing, and he isn’t really wrong. It only takes one attempt from Kei to help repair a neighbour’s car for all of his fundamental inadequacies to be exposed, and he has to spend the rest of the morning being lectured on tire pressure gauges and the evils of _those ugly little bottles people fix to their aircon vents,_ and ever since, every time he shows up, Shigeru’s rolling his eyes before he can even open his mouth, and banishing him to a corner of the room with his sketchbook.

And Kei does fill up pages and pages with studies; Shigeru’s broad, thick-fingered hands working at the loose handle of a double-glazed window; his entire form crouched over the fire as he works at it carefully, like he’s breathing life back into the lungs of the house, which he is. Youko, too, when she sings as she clatters her pots and pans— only when no guests are in, which is the only time Kei comes out of his room anyway— is singing the life into the place. It’s a large house; the roof imposing, the slope strong, the walls sturdy— but it’s full, even with just the three of them. It would be full even without Kei, or especially without him, without him drawing at least some of the warmth out of every room he slinks into, a cracked-open window of gravitational quiet, the kind that draws him pitying looks when they think he’s too occupied to notice.

(There was a point, too, when they realised that he was hiding something. He doesn’t know when it was. If he did, he would turn it over fifty times, studying it, and replicating it so perfectly in his mind that he would never again risk the mistake of repeating it. Keeping up the lie, after all, is the biggest rule.)

♛

The mountains _are_ beautiful, but Kei isn’t here to paint them, at least not in a way that will last. He does sketch them sometimes, the sight of them too sublime to be left alone, and every once in a while he breaks out the watercolours, mixes pinks and blues and swirls in white, dotting yet another page of his sketchbook with miniature peaks, carving the mountains out of negative space, filling the sky in first. But there’s something soothing about looking out at them without putting them down, in between sessions of painting. Especially when he can’t see them at night, only some faint reminder of them, blanketed in a kind of midnight blue he hadn’t seen for years, and stars— and stars. They might be one of the reasons the painting moves fast like a river, too, as if every time Kei glances out at them, it’s a reminder to create whatever beauty he can create, if only to add to the world.

The canvas is a hundred centimetres long, shorter than the last one he was working on, but not by too much. The colours are the real work; he’d gotten so used to that night-green palette that the soft pinks of spring were almost impossible to compute at first, even when he had the exact references right before his eyes. He spent hours staring at his print of the painting, on the first day, scarcely knowing where to begin. As if, in the thick of winter, he really had forgotten that flowers could bloom again.

♛

Near the end of the month, Kei gives the country’s best sake a try, and _does_ fall down the stairs this time, without dignity, but with laughter, at least. He seems to be the only one laughing— the mix of sake and the one-beer-too-many that he had with Shigeru is warm in his stomach, and he doesn’t register the bleeding until Youko gasps and presses the sleeve of her shirt to it.

‘Trust you to find the worst splinter in my wall,’ she says in dismay, crouching on the step under the one he’s sitting on while Shigeru fetches the first-aid kit. Her other hand is warm and rough on the nape of his neck, keeping his head tipped back with a gentle grip on it. Kei blinks blearily at the criss-crossing oak beams of the roof so high up, lit warm and earthy in the dim lamps around the house, and his head spins. For a terrifying stretch of seconds, he has no idea where he is, what he’s doing, why he’s here. All he wants is to go upstairs and get into bed. There must be a bed upstairs, surely, and a heater, and a thick blanket, and a window and a garden and a wall of jade. ‘Oh, honey, take a deep breath now. Here comes my oaf of a husband, and isn’t that a new beer in his hand? Shigeru!’

He doesn’t die of embarrassment on the fourth step down, but he does acquire a nasty scar right between his forehead and temple that he fears will never fade, along with the mortifying memory of sitting helpless like a child while getting it bandaged— worse, of reaching out for Youko’s hand when she’s done, and bringing it closer to his eyes, frowning down at it.

It’s a simple gold band, having lost some of its shine but still fitting perfectly, like her hands haven’t changed in thirty years. It’s a part of her anatomy now; he’d never noticed it, not even while sketching it into place a dozen times. Never noticed Shigeru’s, either, though he must have one too. _Is that how it feels,_ he wants to ask. _Is that how it’s supposed to feel?_

Youko curls her fingers around his own, and shakes his hand playfully, turning it over and running a thumb on his knuckles.

‘Not as pretty as yours,’ she says, and she’s wrong, but he can’t correct her. And she has, after all, noticed his. Who wouldn’t? ‘But I love it all the same. Now get up and let’s go back to the fire. I’m sure they taught you how to tell stories in school, and there’s one I’m dying to hear.’


	11. Chapter 11

Atsumu has that blank sort of look on his face, the one where his eyes are wide open but staring at something random, like an ashtray or the leg of a table. He gets it for split-seconds on the mat too, or used to when he and Tobio would spar, and Tobio would manage to get him down by the skin of his teeth. In that one second before he sprang back up, Atsumu would get this exact look in his eyes— one that meant that his brain was pure calculation.

When he gets it in the middle of a discussion, they always know to pause and wait for him to say whatever it is that’s running through his mind, because he’ll interrupt them anyway. So they all peter off, and Tobio takes a moment to look at the slat of sunlight falling clean over Atsumu’s eyes, bringing out their brown.

Then Atsumu looks up, registering the silence, and clears his throat. ‘Fuck, sorry. What I was thinking was, if we could get in a full day at Ashikaga, it’d give us a better idea of the studio, and—’

‘Yacchan said the same thing!’ Hinata chirps. Tobio’s throat tightens at the name, and he’s gotten so used to that feeling that it’s almost stupid that he hasn’t gotten used to the names themselves. ‘Though she was saying something about staying long enough to see how the light changes over the day. I didn’t have the heart to tell her no one gives a crap about that kind of thing at a doujou.’

‘She’s got a point though.’ That’s Miwa, back in the study and armed with a two-litre bottle of strawberry soda and what looks like all the caramel popcorn the kitchen contained. ‘Not about the lighting, I mean, but the location in general. You camp at the studio through what your opening hours will be, and get a feel of the place. Traffic, noise, neighbours, all that.’ She settles on the armrest of Tobio’s chair, straightens his collar. ‘You know this one here gets antsy around rush hour traffic. You don’t want him yelling at the kids.’

‘Amen,’ Hoshiumi says solemnly, while Atsumu laughs.

Tobio glares at them all, and thinks about throwing popcorn at at least one of them. They’re all sprawled on the couch, though, Hinata’s legs over Atsumu’s thighs, Hoshiumi literally hanging upside down off the back as he scrolls through his phone— one false aim and he’s going to get lectured on exactly why they never do that in the study.

‘I wouldn’t yell at children,’ he says, finally. ‘I mean, I wouldn’t yell at anyone—’

‘Oh, you would. Believe _me.’_

‘You don’t count, Shouyou. That’s just how you two talk.’

‘We literally don’t anymore. Think about it. Tell me when’s the last time you remember us yelling at each other.’

They’ve taken over the study for the third day in a row, stealing couches and chairs and hooking all their laptops up on the same power strip, a mess of wires at their feet. Turns out that Tobio only hated discussing locations and details and costs with his father’s friends, and that it’s not the same when it’s with his own. It makes him wonder what else he’s been missing out on, thinking he hates things because he’s only seen old, bored, powerful men do them. And— Tobio’s always had passions, never projects. He’s ignored the itch in his bones for so long that he only notices it now that it’s gone, scratched to make way for— plans. And it makes him wonder how things could’ve been different if he had figured this out earlier. If he had let Hinata convince him of their little idea earlier, and sat down to talk years ago, and discovered how easy it is to be good at things he cares about.

But mostly, it makes him wonder how things would be different right now, if the last two and a half months hadn’t happened, and if there was one more laptop plugged in beside theirs. That itch is still fresh— still a burn, always waiting on the edge of his awareness, for the faintest lull in the world around him.

All he needs is one breath’s lull, and it comes back. The image— no, idea— of Kei, sitting here. Just an idea, not an image, because Tobio doesn’t know how he’d look. What he’d be wearing. Where he’d be sitting. Beside Tobio maybe, with a hand on his thigh, the way he used to keep it under the table at banquets. It was only to tease, back then, and he doesn’t know what it’d be for now, if not to tease. No, he doesn’t know what Kei would be doing here. Would he listen? Would he talk? Argue with Atsumu the way he always wanted to, but always held back from, and without mentioning it to Tobio as if out of politeness? Maybe he would. Maybe he and Miwa would spend the entire afternoon calling out flaws in their plans, then finding solutions. Maybe, in another idea, one that Tobio’s only ever had in his sleep, he would be the one bringing four different mugs of coffee in, putting three down on the table before handing Tobio his— maybe, still in that sleep-idea, he would smile down at Tobio, and Tobio would have everything in the world.

That’s no image, and it’s barely any idea. There must be some other name for what crosses Tobio’s mind when he sees all his friends laughing together like this and tries to make place for one more silhouette. When he takes his morning run in the gardens and mistakes a shadow in the greenhouse for homecoming. When he turns off his lamp at night and gets under the covers and has ideas in his sleep, too sharp, too painful, to be called dreams. He thinks it might be called longing, but he’s never been good with the words themselves, only with wanting to say them.

♕

Akaashi looks different. It takes Tobio a full three minutes, all through the greetings and his catching up with Miwa, to realise that it’s because he’s wearing glasses. A no-nonsense pair, with thick black frames and square lenses, the kind of thing Tobio’d never have expected him to wear. The rest of him’s just as put together as always, camel coat, grey scarf, his gloves a second skin to his hands, the fact that he’s wearing gloves this close to spring in the first place.

He takes them off first, then the coat, the scarf last, as he settles down on the couch and looks around himself as if he’s never seen the living room before, sighing a little. Tobio knows what it’s for.

‘They aren’t home,’ he says, and he isn’t lying; they’re in Sapporo, his mother for a wedding and his father for business, which is the same event. Akaashi raises an eyebrows, but relaxes. ‘I always got a feeling you hated them more than even he did.’

‘He didn’t hate them,’ Akaashi smiles, but doesn’t deny the other half of what Tobio said. ’Trust me, when Kei doesn’t like someone, he makes it known.’

‘I think I might have an idea, yeah,’ Tobio replies. It sounds sharper than he wanted it to. Too late to take it back, so he hopes Akaashi will just laugh, and he does. ‘Did you just get back to town? How was Singapore?’

Akaashi pauses, and he isn’t quick enough to hide the surprise in his eyes— or maybe he isn’t trying to. Something about him today seems more open— or just open. Like he isn’t on a mission. Like he’s just a friend dropping by to say hello. And maybe he really is, because Tobio can’t imagine a single mission anyway. So he smiles at Akaashi’s surprise, and shrugs.

‘Lucky guess,’ he says. ‘He told me you go there every winter, and Europe in the summers. He made it sound like a tragedy, like you’re always too far, or something.’ If he’d known just five damn minutes alone with Akaashi would lead to this, he’d have avoided the man his whole life— but then again, if they weren’t all alone in the living room and house and— right now, he wouldn’t be saying any of it. ‘I think he also makes it known when he likes someone.’

‘Kei tolerates me,’ Akaashi corrects him, but the joke falls flat. There’s something new in his eyes now, something tired, like the look Tobio catches on Miwa’s face when she thinks he’s not looking. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t have any news of him, if you were wondering. I know he’s safe and sound, but—’

‘That’s all that matters,’ Tobio cuts in. ‘That’s all anyone knows. Anyone around me, anyway.’ He doesn’t think it’s that, though. Doesn’t think Kei would try to make sure no information got through to him, and only him. Thinks no one knows, and that’s it. Because if he was in Kei’s place he’d want to bury himself underground for six months too, not talking to a single soul that had anything to do with— anything. ‘I’m sure when he comes around you’ll be the first to hear from him, though.’

Akaashi smiles and leans back into the couch. ‘He’ll hear from me before that. I’m going to send him a real letter in the mail, complete with a little watercolour postcard.’ He doesn’t cut himself off, but he takes a deep, sharp breath after he says it, like it hurt him too. ‘Tobio, I think he—’

‘Please don’t.’ Tobio takes a deep breath too, wonders if he should get something from the kitchen. Tea, or water, at least. Squints at a scuff in the carpet. ‘Please. I tried my best.’

‘To keep him?’

He frowns harder, then looks up. ‘No. No, of course not. I tried my best to—’ To let him go, he wants to say, but if he really wanted to try his best he would’ve fought tooth and nail against it all in the first place. Against dragging Kei away from the world and shutting him up in a house the size of a country, one whose language Kei didn’t speak. But Tobio didn’t— he went with it, because everyone had decided and he was the last in line, they both were— and then he let Kei go, and he might have spent all this time being furious at Akiteru and Miwa and both their parents, but at least they had decided that, too. That Kei would be let go of.

‘To keep things the way they were supposed to be,’ he says finally. It doesn’t sound right, but he has no other words. ‘To— follow it through. The marriage. The deal. Even the boring—’ He covers his mouth, the smile, swallowing to wet his stinging throat. ‘I tried to do everything I was supposed to. I did it all— I did everything I was supposed to do.’

Akaashi doesn’t speak. Tobio sees him lean forward from the cushions, leaning his elbows on his knees, knows Akaashi’s staring at him, but can’t meet his eyes. He just can’t— but maybe—

Tobio looks up. Akaashi has a new look on his face, one he can’t begin to understand.

‘Did you do anything you _wanted_ to?’ he asks. ‘Anything you weren’t supposed to do?’

Tobio looks away, then laughs. It sounds pathetic. ‘I like how you just knew that. That if I wanted it, I probably wasn’t supposed to.’

Akaashi laughs too, but only after a beat, like he got the joke a second late. And his laugh sounds like it too, like he doesn’t really find it funny, like he’s still turning it over in his head. When Tobio looks back at him, his eyes are far away, like he’s trying his hardest to figure it out.

 _Don’t bother,_ Tobio wants to tell him. _It was barely a joke._

It was barely one— there’s nothing funny about it, about how Tobio, still, after all this time, is doomed to only look back on images as memories. Process them all late. Running late to that December morning, the only one, when he felt the weight in his arms before he even opened his eyes, and almost didn’t want to open them at all and destroy the dream. And he’d opened them anyway, slowly, carefully, and realised that it was useless. The room was dark, of course it was, and he could barely make out Kei’s outline, let alone his face.

It hadn’t mattered. Because that outline was entirely in Tobio’s arms, Kei’s forehead pressed to the crook of his shoulder, the sweet rose of him everywhere, from his soft hair to the dip of his neck. His hands, one under Tobio, one over his chest, fingers curled over his sternum. He was entirely in Tobio’s arms. Tobio couldn’t see him in the darkness, but could feel all of him, every breath of him, every beat of his heart.

‘Once,’ he answers.

After a second, Akaashi looks up, and Tobio thinks he wasn’t even listening. His eyes are bright behind the glasses, and Tobio only now realises how horrible, how sad Akaashi looked all this while, until he doesn’t look it anymore.

‘One more question,’ he says. ‘Have you ever seen one of Kei’s forgeries?’

♕

At the end of March, at Sugawara’s orders, Tobio leads Hana into the greenhouse with a little kerchief tied around her eyes. She insists on walking, hand all tiny and prim in Tobio’s own, stumbling more than once in the tall grass but always catching herself. She’s wearing a pink dress today, and matching shoes, and even strawberry barrettes. Tobio thinks she might have grown taller too; it’s been nearly four months since he saw her.

The greenhouse is gorgeous, again, but Tobio can still barely stand to look at it. All its overgrowth of vines and flowers, the warmth, both inside and outside, the way the colour of the sun has changed— the way it comes in in bands and beams now instead of filtering through the glass weakly like fog. The way the green of everything is— new, fresh, the sheets on every bed changed. The way Sugawara himself looks a little more alive than he did, the way Hana is her namesake— as if Tobio’s the only one still in scarves and coats, like the chill hasn’t left him yet. Like it follows him around.

He sees it before her, of course. And it’s good, because that way he has an extra minute to look at it, and to make sure there’s nothing on his face when her blindfold comes off. He hoists her onto the chair Sugawara’s readied for her, steadies her, takes a deep breath himself.

‘Okay, are you ready, Hana-chan?’ Sugawara asks. When she nods, so fast her hair goes whipping up and down, he and Tobio both laugh. ‘All right, here we go!’

Tobio reaches out and undoes the knot on her blindfold, and pulls it away. Sugawara makes some silly little noise, pointing at the row of pots before her, and waits.

The sweet peas have bloomed beautifully. They might be the most beautiful ones Tobio’s ever seen in his life, anywhere in the world. Violet and maroon and pink and white, their curls so fragile it’s like the stems have just caught petals of another flower on their way to the ground, cradled them carefully, folded them up. They look like they’d be crushed the minute fingers touched them, so Tobio doesn’t dare. And Hana doesn’t, either, even though her favourite thing to do is play with all the plants.

She blinks down at them in wonder, eyes wide and bright, mouth open. Tobio thinks for a second that his knees might give out, and then she starts to wail. One second she’s staring, the next tears are cascading down her face, dripping off her chin, nose bright read, cheeks splotchy. The next, she’s howling.

‘Oh, Hana,’ Sugawara gasps, and he sounds so shocked— Tobio doesn’t know how he could be. ‘Oh, sweetie. Do you want a hug? Can I hug you? Come here.’ She reaches out weakly with her arms, and he picks her up, rocks her side to side. ‘Oh, dear. What’s wrong, baby?’

‘Don’t know,’ Hana sobs. _Don’t remember,_ Tobio corrects. Over her heaving little shoulders Sugawara looks at Tobio, and shakes his head.

 _Don’t you start,_ he’s saying, but Tobio never actually stopped.

♕

(‘Have you ever seen one of Kei’s forgeries?’

Tobio frowns at him, then considers. The only one of Kei’s works he’s seen right before his eyes is her, and she— doesn’t feel like a forgery. She’s— the exact same, yes, down to the signature though Tobio doesn’t remember if Kei actually put one in or not— but she doesn’t feel like one. She’s a creature, a ghost. A memory, maybe, or a story. A painting.

‘I don’t know the difference,’ he says finally. ‘Not— between it and the original, I mean, though I guess I wouldn’t be able to tell either. Every artist paints the same things sometimes, right? I don’t know which one is supposed to be a forgery and which one is just—’

Then Akaashi smiles, a real smile.

‘Exactly,’ he says.)


	12. Chapter 12

_Gather Ye Rosebuds_ is full of colours Kei had forgotten how to paint with. The gleaming copper hair, the light blue of an open sky, and the flowers themselves, of course, always, flowers. It’s a celebration of colours; it would be a shame if it wasn’t, a painting that so singingly tells a story of spring.

‘The first verse is about flowers,’ he says to Youko when he finally shows her the canvas, deeming it at a presentable stage of progress. ‘ _Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, old Time is still a-flying._ ’ And this same flower that smiles today, tomorrow will be dying. ‘Waterhouse made two paintings based on this poem, this is the second one. There’s a funny story, too, you won’t believe where they found it.’

Youko only humours him a full minute later; she’s too busy staring at the painting, walking around in a full circle as if there’s anything to be seen on the back of it. He can barely tell if she likes it or not, only that it’s occupying all of her mind right now, which is after all everything an artist would want.

‘That verse isn’t about flowers,’ she says absently. ‘Where’d they find the painting?’

‘In a farmhouse,’ Kei grins, and that gets her. She snorts, then laughs outright. ‘I’m serious. The couple who found it just wanted to keep it there because it looked nice on the wall.’

‘I’m going to keep this one too,’ she says. ‘It’ll look nice on my wall. Can I pay you in monthly instalments? Though I’ll be dead before I pay it off.’

‘I charge interest,’ he replies, then dodges the rag she sends flying at him. ‘I can make you a discount in exchange for a lifetime supply of grilled trout. Or a pass to come stay whenever I want.’

When he picks the rag off the floor and turns back to her, she’s leaning against the window, arms crossed over her stained work shirt, smile soft on her face.

‘Now you know we’re well past that, honey,’ she says simply.

He clears his throat before she can say anything else, because he knows what’s coming— funnily enough, she doesn’t share a single tell with Akiteru, and yet they both have this same tilt to their eyebrows when they’re about to launch into a discussion Kei doesn’t want to have, as if they’ve been related all along without knowing it.

Kei knows what particular discussion is heading his way; has already had it with her once, the day they were sitting at dinner and he told them what work he does when he’s not hiding from the world in the innermost crevices of the country.

 _Art conservation,_ Shigeru had repeated. _The jokes write themselves, huh. Here I thought you were a pretentious little boy painting triangles and squares, but you’re in the whole jig. With gloves and solvent and all._

 _Gloves and solvent and all,_ Kei had smiled. _You did say some things are so old they need living souls to take care of them._

Youko hadn’t laughed at either of them through dinner, and didn’t really speak either; only ate, and carried her dishes to the kitchen in silence.

It was later, when Kei picked up the sponge and the soap, that she leant against the counter and looked up at him. He withstood it for as long as he could, before looking down and raising his eyebrows.

‘When do you leave?’ she’d asked, blunt but light. ‘We were told to expect something like six months, but you’ll leave before, right?’

‘If I’m that unwelcome,’ he’d tried to joke, but startled politeness had crept in; for a second he didn’t know if he really wasn’t wanted— he was, after all, a guest in a stranger’s home.

‘I’d fit you into one of my flowerpots and keep you here forever if I could,’ she replied, then, and something warm washed over Kei. ‘You’re quiet and clean up after yourself. That’s more than I can say for my own Riko, that menace. But she left, and so should you. There’s a world outside waiting for you to come back.’

‘There’s plenty of world to go around here, too.’

‘Not for you.’ She plucked the sponge out of his hands, put it back on the edge of the sink. ‘Your world here is the four walls of that little room upstairs, and that rickety old lamp Shigeru won’t replace, and some vague concept of mountains. That’s not a world, not the one you want to live in anyway. You belong outside.’

He hadn’t answered. He wouldn’t have answered even if she had left him all evening, and maybe she knew that too, because she didn’t wait too long before continuing.

 _‘Outside_ doesn’t have to mean _with him,_ you know?’ she’d asked softly. ‘You understand? If you leave this place, it doesn’t mean that’s the only other place for you to go to. You don’t have to share your whole world with him.’

 _You don’t have to share your whole world with him._ There it was— there it is, the reason Kei doesn’t want to have this discussion with her, or with anyone. Because he still remembers the speed with which he had thought it.

 _What if I want to,_ he’d thought. _What if I want_ outside _to mean_ with him? _What if I want to— change the definition of truth?_

♛

In the middle of April, he finishes _Gather Ye Rosebuds._ When he moves the easel to the middle of his little wooden room, closer to his mattress, and steps back to look at it, he feels nothing at all. If there’s anything that makes it through the grey slate between him and the canvas, it definitely isn’t satisfaction. But he doesn’t know if anything does. Nothing but vague memories of gardens and greenhouses, a child’s laughter, and a rare, small smile— and so, nothing that he didn’t carry already.

♛

The next day, a letter arrives for him. A real letter, in a real envelope. Shigeru is the one to bring it in, turning it over and squinting at it like he can’t believe his eyes, cigarette tucked into the corner of his mouth. Kei looks up from his book and watches the way he stops by the reception-table, dropping the rest of the mail on it before turning around.

‘It’s for you,’ he says, holding it out. Kei blinks at him, then reaches out for it. The envelope is innocent enough, white and neat, if a little larger than he’d have expected— but then again, he wasn’t expecting one at all.

Then he recognises the scrawl spelling out his address, and a smile tugs at his lips despite his frown. It must make for a funny face, because Shigeru snorts.

‘Love letter?’ he asks.

‘Hardly,’ Kei says. If there’s one thing he can count on Akaashi to write, it’s pages of wild and dirty details— not a word of love. ‘I think I’m about to get executed via the written word, actually. If you’ll excuse me.’

It stays light out much longer now, but he still needs to turn his lamp on when he gets to his room, and the chill hasn’t left yet. Kei shivers and pulls his shawl tighter around himself, working at the envelope with a stray scraper, wincing when it tears unevenly. Pulls out two sheets of paper.

One, he sees, is a letter, not very long, and not evenly divided either.

The second is a watercolour, of a bunch of sweet peas.

♛

_Kei,_

_Two excerpts from the paper I was working on back when we first met. Do you remember? The rosebuds?_

_Guess which one I stole, and which one I swallowed._

_“Hers isn’t a story she can tell herself— it has always been a myth meant to be perceived by others, like looking inside a globe by splitting it open through the ocean. Hers is a story characterised by negative space, by absence. Her absence from the earth above, then her absence from the underworld. In essence, it is a story defined by longing, one that the onlooker fills in at will. The union is only a part of it: the heart, then, is the separation. The separation between mind and verse, and between eyes and canvas, between summer and winter.”_

_[…]_

_“But who defines these myths? Their form is everchanging, across countries, languages, religions— but what remains common? The story. Is the magic, then, in the act of reproducing them, of keeping their beauty intact through translations, but at the expense of their actors’ agency? Or is the gold we look for in myths hidden not in dictating them— albeit in perfection— but letting them choose their own course? Is the gold not in the perfect reproduction, then, or even in the adaptation— but in the retelling?”_

_You’ll write to me, of course, and tell me if I get any credit._

_Keiji._

♛

Shigeru is fishing around in his pocket, likely for his car keys, when Kei catches him. He’s more breathless than he should be, especially given that he only ran four flights down, but he blames it on the cold that still clings to these mountains, and takes a second to pant, hands on his knees, as Shigeru frowns down at him.

‘Shigeru-san,’ he says, and it’s barely a wheeze. ‘Just one second— I need— I need the wifi password—’

He still can’t breathe, four hours later, when Youko calls for dinner. Skips three stairs at a time on the way down, and rolls his sleeves up before he even enters the kitchen. She turns around with something to say, then stops, spatula in the air, bewilderment on her face. He _must_ look a little—

’I can help with serving,’ he says, walking over to the counter. ‘But— can I please take mine upstairs? I’m not hungry, just soup will do—’

Youko narrows her eyes, but she’s smiling. ‘What is it?’

What is it? It’s that when Kei left the estate in the first hour of the new year, he doesn’t remember who was driving in the car, only that he’d tipped his head back so that he could breathe better, and that he’d wanted to sleep forever. It’s that months ago, Kei woke up to perfect darkness, and a heart so warm and strong under his ear that for a second he couldn’t imagine how he’d made it his entire life without waking up like this. It’s that months before that, when they were nothing but fixtures in each other’s lives, Tobio must have sat up an entire night looking through an imaginary rulebook, trying to come up with a way to set Kei free; a loophole, a solution, an idea. His first act of rebellion, become his first act of love: picking up the pen.

‘I’ve been painting,’ Kei says, ‘the wrong painting.’


	13. Chapter 13

It’s sticky-hot. Tobio has been changing his alarms all month, waking up earlier and earlier to beat the sun, so that he can run outside in peace without dying in a pool of his own sweat. It works for the most part, and he never needs much sleep in the summers anyway, so he can stay up late at night. He ends up doing it more often than not, too, because the gardens come to life every spring, and this close to summer his parents or Miwa have friends over almost every week— and sometimes, so does Tobio. Atsumu’s more or less set up a tent in Hinata’s apartment, claiming it’s to nurse the heartbreak of being culled from one of his tournaments, but mostly it’s so that they can all get together on Saturdays on the patio behind Tobio’s kitchen and drink themselves silly on cheap beers, only on their best behaviour when Tobio’s father comes out, because they’re going to have to sell him an idea next month, and they need to look credible.

Tobio doesn’t drink as much, but he stays up every minute, and even convinces Yachi and Yamaguchi to join them sometimes— and Akaashi, too, just once. Most other times it’s the four of them, Hoshiumi bringing his dogs over every once in a while to let them loose in the garden, especially when Sugawara’s got the sprinklers going.

He’s got them on right now, too; Tobio gets caught in the spray just as he walks through the gate, and he knows Sugawara did it on purpose, because he turns them off the minute Tobio runs to the front door, cursing. He’s still laughing despite himself as he steps inside the house, changing into slippers before opening the main door and bounding right up the stairs. For a second he frowns at how empty the place feels, then remembers the others are in the city for— well, something, that he didn’t want to go to. It’s happening more and more these days, Tobio skipping out of meetings that run until midnight and lunches with people he last met when he was ten, and so far his father hasn’t said anything about it— doesn’t even look like he’s noticed. Miwa has, though, but she doesn’t care.

He hears more yelling from outside when he steps out of the bathroom, then Sugawara’s chiming laughter, him yelling back _sorry, oh, God_. Tobio rolls his eyes, imagines Miwa screeching something about her hair or makeup or satchel, or Hinata, who probably just stood there and let himself get soaked. He opens the door of his bedroom just as he hears the front door close, and decides to finish toweling his hair before going downstairs.

Then he hears— not footfalls, not on the carpeted stairs, but movement anyway— and the lights of his hallway come on.

On the other end of it, like a ghost, Kei catches his breath, flicks sprinkler water out of his hair, adjusts his grip on the large bag he’s holding, and turns to Tobio.

♕

He’s beautiful. He’s beautiful. His hair has grown out, though maybe it looks longer because it’s damp— his skin has turned just a little paler. He also looks furious, has looked it since he caught sight of Tobio and narrowed his eyes, and strode down the hall and past Tobio into the room.

Tobio’s still standing in the doorway, hasn’t even turned around. He’s looking out into the split of daylight and lamplight in the hallway, still turning over, in his head, the image of Kei on the other end of it.

Then Kei snaps, ‘Aren’t you coming in?’ and Tobio jerks into action, steps in, closes the door behind himself. Keeps the towel around his neck so that his hair doesn’t drip onto his shirt, and leans against the door, stares.

Kei’s dragged out one of the armchairs and set it right in front of the folded-up partition— if he had a reaction to that, Tobio didn’t get to see it— and he’s pulling out what looks like three whole frames from his bag. Tobio looks blankly at them until he realises that it’s two empty canvases protecting the third between them. Watches as Kei works at the strange metal clasps holding them together, puts the empty ones away, and sets up the painting on the armchair.

Tobio barely gets a glimpse at it— registers pale greens and something pink— before Kei’s in his line of vision again. White shirt, grey slacks, so tall and imposing and— Kei— here, in Tobio’s bedroom. In their bedroom. With his glasses and his amber eyes and— a scar on his forehead, one that wasn’t there before, Tobio would’ve noticed; he has everything memorised.

‘Do you know what my family does?’ Kei asks. 

‘Yes,’ Tobio answers, but Kei’s already shaking his head.

‘Sit down,’ he says, and Tobio takes the final step to the bed and sits on the edge of it, heavier than he intended. He’s still staring, barely manages to look away when Kei points back to the painting. He can see it fully now: she’s dressed in a wild sort of pink, picking flowers in a stretch of woods. Her cheeks are pink, too. The sky is pink, too, or looks like it would be if he could get a better look at it.

‘This is from a private collection, okay?’ Kei says. ‘So if a museum or a gallery or, I don’t know, some pretentious asshole from Kobe wants to display it, they have to order a reproduction. That’s one of the main things we do. Reproductions. We paint the exact same thing and hand it over for a few million yen, and everyone’s happy, and no one cares, because it’s the same fucking thing.’

Tobio swallows, nods.

‘And then sometimes, and only if the painting is obscure enough,’ Kei continues, ‘we can make a few _hundred_ million yen off it. We find a reference, or better, the thing itself, and we get to it. Like copying homework, but perfectly. And we scout out the right clients, the ones who’d know just enough, and be just ignorant enough, and we sell it off to them. We can’t do it often, but the price is worth it. That’s forgery.’

Tobio nods. She looks younger than the one in the studio. Livelier, but that’s because she’s picking flowers, not shut up in a cellar. But there’s something else about her, and Tobio thinks that it has nothing to do with how he doesn’t know the first thing about art— that has nothing to do with why he can’t tell what it is. Why he can’t tell what it is about her.

Kei pushes his hair back with a hand. It _has_ grown. He’s still wearing the ring. He’s still wearing the ring.

‘There are two kinds of forgery,’ he says, then. ‘That’s the first one. The other one is harder, but it pays better, and if you do it well enough, you’ll never get caught. Ever. Because it doesn’t involve copying homework.’ Kei stops to take a breath, and for a second Tobio thinks he’ll realise that he’s spoken more in one go than he ever has and stop, but then he’s continuing. ‘You swallow the homework, and spit out something new, and no one realises that a different person wrote the assignment. You don’t copy a painting— you copy a style. You perfect an artist’s style and come up with something entirely new, and you don’t get caught, because it’s the only one in the world.’

There’s no signature, Tobio realises, finally. He would’ve been able to see one even all the way from the bed, just a smudge on the corner of the canvas, but he’d have seen it. There isn’t any, and Tobio, of all people, would know how important signatures are. On paintings and property leases and marriage certificates.

‘I was working on a different painting,’ Kei says. ‘It was called _Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May._ Waterhouse. Four women picking flowers. I finished it, even, but— I was sick of copying homework. And I was too tired to just— paint something of my own.’ He laughs, then, sudden and short, and Tobio’s heart kicks. ‘You— I was so fucking exhausted. I just didn’t know why.’ Tobio’s heart kicks. ‘I wanted to take the middle way— chew something, swallow it, spit it back up. So that I both could and couldn’t control it. But I—’ He’s still wearing the ring, and he’s here in their bedroom, and there’s a scar on his forehead. ‘I got the idea from a letter, and there was something else in that letter, something I’d forgotten, that I couldn’t ignore.’

‘What was it?’ It comes out hoarse. It’s the best Tobio can do.

‘This,’ Kei says, and points to the painting. ‘I’d forgotten that Waterhouse had copied his own homework. Same fucking landscape, same fucking scene, but just one character this time instead of four. Just one woman picking flowers. Only she wasn’t just any woman, they weren’t just any flowers. You know her name, don’t you? You know what he named this piece, right?’

Tobio does, even though he’s never seen it in his life, never seen her, not like this, pink-cheeked and wet-haired and full of blossoms, and within arm’s reach. ‘Persephone.’

‘Persephone,’ Kei whispers. ‘A reproduction could never have a will of its own. This one wouldn’t either— but I was Waterhouse, and I chewed his story up, Tobio, and—’ That’s the first time he’s said Tobio’s name, and as if his own voice realises it, it wavers. ‘And I told the story all over again— and it didn’t matter that it was the same story. It doesn’t. It doesn’t fucking _matter_ how many copies of a painting there are in the world— it doesn’t fucking matter if you chewed up and spit out someone’s story and no one could tell it wasn’t them, because what’s the difference, then? What’s the difference, if they can’t tell? How is it any less valuable? Any less real?’

How is this any less real, he’s asking, but not in those terms, because he wouldn’t dare. Between the two of them, Tobio might be the one who takes a fortnight to find a word, but when he does, they’re honest ones. And if there’s anything good about the curse of only understanding Kei bit by bit once he was already gone, it’s that Tobio has learned to translate him. That little twitch of his lips that means he’s holding back a real laugh. The way he twines his fingers together when he doesn’t want to talk to someone. The way he’s asking _how is this relationship less real just because someone else came up with it,_ and the way he’s saying _I’m changing the story._

The way he’s looking at Tobio now, just a little out of breath, something unfettered in his eyes. Like the animal Tobio saw a year ago, but free, finally.

‘Talk,’ Tobio says.

‘You’re horrible,’ Kei tells him. ‘I found at least fifteen new things about you that annoyed me when I was away, and the worst part was I couldn’t even do anything about it, because you weren’t there to annoy me with them again. I just sat there and fumed at a memory.’ He steps forward, more blood rising to his cheeks, and more salt rising to Tobio’s eyes. ‘And it made me so fucking angry to know that you’d won. That you got to send me off like some benevolent king, like the world would always remember how much you— loved me, enough to set me free, God, I could _hear_ the sonnets—’

‘I didn’t win.’

‘Of course you did. You figured it out first, and you got your stupid room and counter space back, and you already knew what you wanted.’ Kei, as if he realises how close to Tobio he’s gotten, takes a step away. ‘But I didn’t,’ he adds, quietly. ‘I didn’t, neither for me, nor for you. I didn’t know what you wanted. I didn’t know what I wanted.’

His hair is long enough that the strand of it that keeps falling into his eyes almost reaches halfway down his nose. He keeps brushing it out of the way, but sooner or later it’s going to get caught in his glasses. Tobio bites back a smile at the sight, and then bites the inside of his lip, keeps himself quiet until he can steady his voice.

‘And do you know now?’ he asks.

Kei laughs, and it’s mean, but it’s him, all him. ‘Do I know? I have a goddamn list.’ It doesn’t sound like a particularly happy list, but before Tobio can say that, he’s started on it already. ‘I want to paint you and I want my signature in the corner, and no one will forge it because I’ll eat them alive if they try to drool over the concept of you without having to put up with your bullshit.’ The scar on his forehead is moon-white and about a centimetre long, but not too wide, almost like a fingernail cut too deep. ‘I want a gramophone in the greenhouse, and more roses, and a place of our own someday. I need to be able to walk half-naked to the kitchen at three in the morning, all right? I need to be able to make a huge fucking mess for Sunday pancakes.’ Tobio can’t take his eyes off it.

Kei breathes, then swallows. ‘And I need to know what you want. Tobio.’ The way he says it makes a shudder run down Tobio’s spine, like he’s making it his own, too, like the painting, and the story, and Tobio himself. ‘Are you listening to me? I want you to talk to me too. I want to know what you want.’

Tobio wants to give him everything he wants.

‘I want to know how you got that scar,’ he says. He loves Kei, loves him, loves him. Loves him. ‘It looks stupid as hell.’

Kei blinks dumbly at him.

 _‘What?’_ he hisses.

‘The scar.’ Why does Tobio’s voice sound like that? There’s something in his throat. ‘How did you get it.’

Kei looks like he’s regretting coming back here. Regretting making a life out of a painting for six months, and then for six more. Not regretting Tobio, for once, because Tobio knows how that looks, and it doesn’t look like this. No, this is Kei in the sunlight, in the sun, the _sun,_ for once, and with spring’s colours on him he looks more like a child’s idea of a garden than a garden itself. He looks like a child’s idea of a painting, and not the painting itself. Tobio means to say, there’s something so pure about the sight of him, that it isn’t even allowed to exist in the world, only in the place between mind and imagination.

‘I got it bashing my head into a wall,’ Kei says. ‘Trying to forget you. Happy, my lord?’

‘No,’ Tobio replies. ‘I’m going to have every wall in the world destroyed.’

Kei breathes in deep, too deep; it must hurt his lungs. In a second the last of the frost on his face disappears. Under it is nothing but the same heavy tiredness Tobio’s been living with for nearly half a year, and under that, hope, the kind that strangles.

He points without looking, to the painting. His hand is shaking. He’s still wearing the ring.

‘Then where will we hang this?’ His voice breaks into— a laugh, a wet one. Finally too tired to keep up the act. Finally his bright eyes, red nose, trembling lips. Finally Tobio’s. Finally Tobio’s.

‘We’ll figure it out,’ Tobio replies, and Kei is already falling on the bed, crawling forward on his knees and wrenching Tobio into his arms. Tobio makes a winded whimper and screws his eyes shut, turns his face into Kei’s chest, then his neck when he sits. Clutching at his back, fingers so tight they go numb in seconds. ‘Kei.’ Is that his voice? ‘Kei.’ The hollow of Kei’s throat is still wet from the sprinklers outside. He smells like rain. ‘Kei.’

Kei takes a deep breath, then makes the sweetest sound Tobio’s ever heard. He only makes it once, the shuddering sob of it, then catches himself. But Tobio can feel the trapped ones in his chest, in the way it shakes, the way his hands clutch back, one at Tobio’s shoulders, the other tight in his hair right where Kei’s open mouth is pressed to his crown. So Tobio tightens his grip, and doesn’t hold back. Cries like a lonely lover, like a river swelling in monsoon, like a child before sweet peas. Yes. Like he has plants to water.

♕

The sun is low in the sky by the time they lie still, spent on the pillows, staring at each other. Sweaty and breathless, and Kei’s hair spun silk; Tobio has everything in the world. Kei turns on his back, eyes falling closed, inhaling through his mouth. He’s going to want to take a shower soon, and Tobio will have to scrounge up food for him from downstairs, and then, by sunset, at least someone will be here. His parents and Miwa, or Hoshiumi, or Hinata. They’ll take one look at him, and know.

‘Marry me,’ Tobio says. ‘That’s what I want.’

Kei’s lips part a little more, in surprise, before he presses them back together like he’s trying not to smile. The red flush of his chest creeps up his neck, then blooms independent over his nosebridge, over his cheeks. He’s trying to look amused, or bored. He looks drunk.

‘You want to marry me?’

‘Yes,’ Tobio replies, almost before the words are sounded.

Then Kei breathes in deep— but this one looks smooth, like it won’t knock against anything but a full heart— raises his hand without opening his eyes, angles it towards Tobio. And yes, the ring sits so perfectly on his finger that Tobio knows, just knows, that he never took it off.

‘I have the _best_ news for you,’ Kei says. And Tobio lets him have his joke, laughs along, but then he’s raising himself on an elbow, looking down at Kei. Stroking his hair off his forehead, fingertip running over his scar.

‘I really want to,’ he says. ‘Again.’

Kei’s eyelashes flutter, but he still doesn’t open them. ‘Well, then we’re having a honeymoon this time, and I already know where we’re going.’

‘And where’s that?’ He could say _the greenhouse_ and Tobio would follow. He could say _on the other end of the Earth._ Tobio would follow.

Then Kei opens his eyes. They’re so bright— more amber than amber. More gold than gold. Suddenly he’s a different creature, a bright, careless, happy one.

‘To a place,’ Kei says, ‘where they sell bottled sunlight.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Persephone (1912), John William Waterhouse.](https://www.wikiart.org/en/john-william-waterhouse/narcissus-1912)


	14. Chapter 14

Akiteru steps back, then, deciding that he isn’t yet satisfied, steps forward again, and does something or the other with Kei’s hair, also again. Yet again. Kei would roll his eyes if he wasn’t busy squinting against the sun, which must clearly have a personal vendetta against him for the way it is shining precisely into his face through the window, and this close to setting, too. Maybe that’s it— his height, and the placement of the window, and the angle of the sun all make for an overbright vision, filled sentient sparkles, golden and bubbling.

‘Are you about done, or should I borrow some ribbons from Hana?’ Kei snaps, finally, when Akiteru tugs at a strand of his hair again. ‘I’m sure she’d love to be on flower _and_ pigtail duty.’

‘Shut up,’ Akiteru says serenely. ‘I’m done. Now— cufflinks— yes, good— watch, okay, show me your socks— what? Show me! Okay— let’s get to the mirror, then, and then for the final—’

Kei has been oh so generously left all use of the bathroom, his kind lord having volunteered to get dressed in the one for guests; he gets to see himself in the best light, in the best mirror. It satisfies his vanity; his suit is dark and glorious, tie a rich rose, and whatever Akiteru did with his hair, it really does look good. He leans forward to brush off spare kohl from his cheeks while Akiteru and Sugawara talk in the hallway, and by the time he’s done fixing a stray line, Akiteru’s back, and he’s beaming.

‘Here it is,’ he says, holding it up carefully. And he does have to be careful, because those are fresh sweet peas, frail and fragile, and Sugawara would kill him if he bruised them. The boutonnière is just a little larger than it should be, but it doesn’t matter; it’s still beautiful, and Kei still feels his heart beat just a little harder when Akiteru comes forward to pin it on him, even though he’s already done this before. (Only once, though— the very first time, no one had thought of flowers.)

Once he’s done, he spins Kei around to the mirror again, and beams, smile so wide Kei thinks his face is going to fall off. ‘You look great, kiddo.’

‘I always look great,’ Kei tells him. ‘I’m the pretty one, remember?’

‘Oh, stop.’ Akiteru puts on a haughty face, places his elbow on Kei’s shoulder. Kei makes a show of plucking it off disdainfully, brushes off his shoulder. Dodges Akiteru’s retaliating punch with a snort, then straightens up again. Looks at himself properly, and takes a deep breath.

He’s already done this before— twice, even, but it never stops feeling like he’s starting a new painting. Or rather, the moment before he starts a new painting: only the air, and the thought, suddenly, of making art from it. Like he holds all of the world’s magic in his hands. He breathes again, and adjusts his glasses.

Akiteru holds out a hand, palm up. ‘If you please.’

And because Kei both loves and hates this part, he can’t hold back a little laugh as he raises his own hand. Twists the ring off carefully and drops it on the waiting palm, and flexes his fingers, not used to having the third one bare.

‘It’s only for a little while,’ Akiteru reminds him, as if he knows, somehow. ‘It’ll be back before you know it.’

♛

The ceremony is as private as it can get when Hinata and Akiteru are both involved in preparations. What started off last year with only Kei, Tobio, Miwa, Akiteru and Sugawara, has now extended to a veritable little party. Kei had opposed it at first when an equally long-suffering Kunimi brought the guest list over, said _I love them all but they can all fuck off,_ glowered for half a day because he’d only ever intended for this to belong to the two of them. Even their siblings were only present last time because they’d both pulled out all the emotional blackmail stops.

 _Hinata said he thought you’d say that,_ Kunimi had said last month, in response to Kei’s glowering. _He’d like to remind you that the gardens are free real estate as far as he’s concerned, so if he accidentally ends up at the wedding, it’s none of your business._

Tobio had been the one to convince him, later that night in the study, when Kei was going over appraisal appointments and cursing that his tea was too hot to drink. Tobio’d brought over another cup, lukewarm this time, and taken the too-hot one for himself.

 _I think it’d be nice,_ he’d said, stationed behind Kei’s chair, pretending to care about the full calendar on the screen, one arm around Kei’s chest. _Our parents won’t be there anyway. We can make a real party out of it._

 _We party enough,_ Kei had replied darkly. _You know our siblings, give them an inch, they’ll take a mile. Next thing you know there’s some indie magazine journalist showing up next year, writing an article about reclusive painter Kageyama Kei and his hot jock judoka husband, and their quirky little marriage ceremonies—_

 _Stop,_ Tobio said, but he was laughing. _Give it a try. If you don’t like it I’ll throw everyone out on the spot. Promise._

Kei has a long list of grievances with his husband in general, but on the very top must be having to admit he’s right, which he often is. Kei’s always right about certain things— which wine to pair with which meal, and why that scarf doesn’t look good on that patron, and what pair of boots Tobio should order for winter. But Tobio ends up being right about odd, curious things, and it always catches Kei off-guard, even two years later. Things like when to leave an event, and when Kei is about to fall sick, and what will, without fail, end up being good.

As it turns out, then, he was right about this, too. Kei realises it the moment he steps out the door and into the gardens, when he has to blow a breath out through his mouth at how it all looks. Artful tangles of string lights in all the trees, and lanterns already pulling moths to themselves, and all the frills Mayumi-san wanted two years ago, when the rain crashed their first day. And Tobio isn’t right just once— he keeps being right, over and over, because just as Kei takes in the sight of the greenhouse— lit up like a palace, pots and benches cleared and the gramophone going, he can hear it already— he thinks to himself that he’d love someone to take pictures of this, and realises that Hitoka would never show up without her camera. And so Tobio is right again, and then again, when Kei picks his way over to the greenhouse— into its humidity that they will only be able to stand for a little while before escaping back into the outdoors, looking for drinks at the little bar on the patio— he can’t help the smile that takes over his face.

He’s only glad Tobio isn’t here to see it; only one person is, and she has sworn such fierce loyalty to Kei that she would never tell. So he smiles, and crouches down, and waves to Hana and her basket of blossoms.

‘You’re late,’ Hana informs him primly. ‘Yacchan took photos. Keiji was so pretty. You missed it.’

‘Did I, now?’ Kei says. ‘I’m sure Keiji _was_ pretty. But he wasn’t the prettiest, I’m sure.’

‘Of _course_ not,’ she says, and oh God, she definitely picked that up from him earlier in the day; he can hear her testing the inflection out. Kaori’s going to kill him when she comes back tomorrow. _‘I’m_ the prettiest.’

♛

She is. They all agree on it— everyone from Akaashi to Atsumu, who has such a ridiculous soft spot for children that they can sense it, and give him hell for his trouble. Sure enough, by the time Kei’s finally stationed with Akiteru at the far end of the greenhouse, the one that almost pushes up against the woods, Hana has already managed to tuck two handfuls of daisies behind Atsumu’s ears, and one in his buttonhole. Hoshiumi’s stealing one for himself when Kei sees motion outside the greenhouse, and looks up, heart in his throat.

Tobio agrees, too, then; he crosses his arms and leans against the doorframe of the greenhouse, smiling so proud and pleased as Hana throws her flowers, skipping down the aisle. He only looks at Kei when she’s done, and just as well, because that’s given Kei just enough time to school his features into something indifferent. Tobio’ll catch him anyway, but it’s a matter of principle. Of dignity.

So he keeps his face indifferent as Tobio and Miwa make their way down the aisle, Hinata and Tadashi hollering and raising their glasses already, and keeps it indifferent even when Tobio finally comes to a stop before him. Even though Tobio is beautiful; hair combed back, tie a free-sky blue, the his suit making the gold of his skin sing. Even though Kei hasn’t seen him all day, didn’t even get to wake up next to him in the morning, because Tobio’s silly and superstitious and likes playing the ceremony through to the end. Even though Kei missed him.

‘Stop staring,’ Kei whispers, when Tobio’s radiant, dark gaze is too honest to handle. ‘You’re embarrassing.’

‘I have bad news,’ Tobio whispers back with a horrid, smug little grin, which is definitely second on Kei’s list of grievances. ‘You’re about to marry into embarrassing for the third time.’

Miwa and Akiteru both catch it, and burst into laughter at the same time. Kei resigns himself to his repeating fate, and holds his hand out for Tobio’s ring.

♛

They do escape to the gardens as soon as they can, after Miwa and Hitoka and Akiteru are done tearing up, and Sugawara has exceeded his tolerance for so many idiots in his domain. He shoos them all out with a promise to join them as soon as he’s done locking up, and Kei’s already being dragged by Tadashi to the patio, and being handed a bottle of wine just as Atsumu hands one to Tobio.

Kei hates losing, and somehow always seems to lose to Tobio anyway, third on his list of grievances. Because he manages to win the drinking contest, but tries so hard to do it with a margin that it comes back to bite him half an hour later, when the garden turns into a living fairytale, music mixing with liquor mixing with laughter mixing with flowers, until he finds himself leaning against the door to the kitchen, not sure if he’s even smiling or not.

The night is incandescent. When Akaashi comes forward, feet already tapping to the rhythm of a song they both love, Kei still puts on a show— lets himself be pulled up from the couch with an exaggerated eyeroll, but then bows with a flourish in front of Akaashi, before taking his hand and pulling him in. He doesn’t know how his feet manage to keep up with all the wine in his blood, but they do: Kei spins Akaashi around perfectly, pulls him to stops when he’s supposed to, hands on shoulders and waist, swaying, swirling, singing. In the distance he hears Hinata yelling Tobio’s name in a screeching laugh, which is what alerts Kei to his reaction: he’s frozen on the couch, mouth open, dumbfounded, before it turns into a glare.

‘He never dances with _me,’_ Tobio says darkly, just loud enough for Kei to catch it, for Akaashi to throw his head back and laugh.

‘You don’t know how to dance,’ Kei calls back.

♛

He doesn’t. Doesn’t even try, says he was humiliated enough in high school, and that it’s the biggest reason he’s glad he didn’t go to university. It’s always the same excuse, but maybe this time next year they might be able to have a real first dance, even with Tobio’s two left feet. They could do it at the farmhouse by the hearth, and Kei would make sure to get enough beers in Shigeru and Youko that they wouldn’t mock, only clap along and cheer, like they’re watching the world’s best spectacle.

But later, when everyone’s followed Akiteru and Miwa to the bar to confect some kind of horrific cocktail that Akiteru read about last month, Kei settles gracefully beside Tobio on the couch, and tips his head back, looking up into the lantern-lit sky. They’re the only ones at their candlelit table, and Kei’s head is going to kill him tomorrow, but it won’t tonight, and he supposes that’s a good enough risk to take. If he could go back to when he was holding the full bottle of wine, with the option to remake his choice, he’d still do it again. He’d drink it again. He’d let Tobio convince him to invite all their friends again. He’d take the ring off again, then put it on again, then again. Then again.

‘Why do you look like that?’ Tobio whispers.

Kei doesn’t find it useful, anymore, to dwell on non-choices. On where he was born, who raised him, who he met. But choices are different. The choice Tobio made to open up his sunlit doujou on the edges of Ashikaga, braving a dozen meetings and accountant appointments with a smile for it. The choice Kei made six months ago, when he told his mother that he wanted his own work in galleries, not just what he could make of others’, and that he wouldn’t be— the choice—

Kei blinks, then laughs. It comes over him sudden like the wine itself, until he has to curl forward, head in his hands. He senses Tobio leaning forward too, swallows, tries to gather himself.

‘Have I ever told you about—’ Fuck, his face is doing something out of his control. ‘About this one— forger— it’s Akiteru’s favourite story, hang on, let me—’

‘No,’ Tobio says. He sounds strange. ‘You tell me.’

Kei takes a deep breath, then another, straightens up, clears his throat. There’s a certain gravity to the situation— a story, when told, has to be told well. The lines have to land, the timing has to be perfect. The inflections.

‘A man,’ he begins, ‘I don’t remember his name, God. Wolfgang something. A fucking genius— if you think my mother’s work is insane, you’ve never seen this guy— well—’ He breaks off again, tries to swallow another laugh. ‘Well, maybe you’ve seen his work, you just don’t know it’s him. Fuck— anyway. He made millions off his forgeries. Just millions. There’s over two hundred of his fakes floating around in the world, and no one knows which ones they are.’

Over at the bar, Tadashi makes a hysterical, disgusted sound; the cocktail’s come to fruition.

‘And— he got caught, a few years ago, arrested,’ Kei continues when he’s got his breathing back under control. ‘Because they ran a forensic analysis on one of his forgeries that he claimed was from 1914 and— they found a pigment. Titanium white. And that’s how they caught him, because that pigment didn’t exist yet in 1915. He used it because he ran out of zinc that day, and it didn’t say titanium on the bottle. One single pigment.’ Oh God, here it comes again; Kei shouldn’t have had all that wine. He’s never laughed this hard in his life, he’s certain.

‘That’s not funny,’ Tobio says, then, with such genuine concern in his voice that Kei’s about to unmarry him.

‘Shut up,’ he says, wheezes. ‘I’m getting to it. That’s not the best part. The best part— the best part— fuck—’ He can’t do it. Reaches for the glass on the table, doesn’t know what’s in it but it looks like red, and he wants it. But he’s laughing too hard; he barely manages to get the glass up and Tobio’s taking it from his hand, setting it aside, turning to him.

Tobio cups his face, looks at him stern and serious, eyes so painfully dark.

‘What’s the best part?’ he asks urgently, as if it’s the most important thing in the world. As if he will die if Kei doesn’t tell him the best part.

‘The best part,’ Kei says, laughter leaving him for a second. ‘Is that they asked him in an interview if he thought he’d done something wrong. And he said, _well, I used the wrong paint, yeah.’_

And then he’s gone again, dissolving into fresh laughter, hiccupping, head tipping away from Tobio’s grasp and against the backrest. He blinks wearily up at the blurring firefly-lights in the trees, at the sky, again, beyond them; he sighs. And Tobio says nothing, then pulls him up, forward, and kisses him like he’s drinking from a stream.

‘You’re,’ he mumbles between breaths, biting at Kei’s lower lip, then kissing the corner of his mouth, all while Kei closes his eyes and leans all his weight into him. ‘I like when you laugh, you know that?’

‘I laugh all the time.’

‘Like it every time.’

‘Even when I’m laughing at you?’

There’s a pause, anything but silent because the others are still drinking, because Kei’s still breathless, the last of it spilling out in almost-whimpers of giggles. But just as he starts to go quiet, Tobio tugs him forward again, kissing him fiercer than ever.

‘Yes,’ he says simply. ‘Even when you’re laughing at me.’

♛

Summer comes for their little country the next morning. By some miracle, and he doesn’t know which one, Kei’s head does nothing to him when he opens his eyes, though he curses whoever left the blinds open last night to let the sun stream in so shamelessly. The sun is shameless, lighting up all of Tobio’s angles, his sideways-form a mountain range. Kei runs a fingertip over his skin, and can’t bring himself to regret it when Tobio slowly opens his eyes, looking right at him.

‘Ask,’ Tobio says, though he’s not even awake yet.

‘Can I paint you today?’

His eyes close again, slowly, sleep not yet relinquishing its pull on him. Kei should let him exist in peace, but the sight of him can’t be left alone. Kei has to perfect a way to describe it; and let that way change with every new season that touches them.

‘Tomorrow,’ Tobio answers. Beyond him, outside the window, a green, inevitable, bides its time.

♛

_CLEOPATRA:  
_ _Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have  
_ _Immortal longings in me_

**Author's Note:**

> sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, and quoting a dear twitter follower: why are all the sexy things in life painful...
> 
> music, as always, essential: [proserpine](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/73VCXSxF7GWWlIHkynnimA?si=XTBDWyEpQleA7FAGRlr6-g) / [persephone](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/26djuxPhI4iHigSpERnf0M?si=CeNL7WNHQGiTzEXgyurt1A). if you listen to nothing else, listen to [this,](https://open.spotify.com/track/189DQylImZ1hGZaIpAQUzx?si=rOorIe1sQWKszqr7kSmxHA) please.
> 
> [wolfgang beltracchi.](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/art-forger-wolfgang-beltracchis-multimillion-dollar-scam/)
> 
> lin is the one who brought him up, changed the course of this story, gave me all the paintings that kei works on, and, in general, is the one who helped me bring this entire thing into being. the first line of kei's narration comes from her - i copied her homework!
> 
> june, of course [hana-imitating-kei-voice] of _course,_ drew the [magical, magical myth of a piece](https://twitter.com/tricksteller/status/1346867238377299969) that brought you here. june, i'm running out of adjectives.
> 
> and now with [gorgeous, gorgeous artwork](https://twitter.com/ajuyikes/status/1347563801885908998) by min. min, thank you for the flowers. 
> 
> **tsukki:** try me bitch  
>  **kags:** tries him  
>  **tsukki:** ok untry me
> 
> you can find me on [twitter.](http://twitter.com/tricksteller)


End file.
